The Name's The Game
by SimplyAlexei
Summary: Shield does some digging after Tony Stark steals a talented astrophysicist and her assistant from them post-Puente Antiguo incident, and what they find comes as a shock to all parties involved and may just change the way the chips fall in humanity's battle against the God of Mischief. Avengers rewrite. ShockArrow.
1. Preface - Changing the Game

Jane was the first to notice the similarities between Tony and Darcy. As soon as the genius/playboy/billionaire/philanthropist stepped into her New Mexico lab for the first time there was an undeniable echo of her favorite intern present. He had a relaxed stance, leaning almost a far back standing up as her assistant was in the chair she sat in. Said assistant's first reaction to spotting the infamous Iron Man was an eloquent "Shit!" and the fumbling and subsequent dropping of her lunch, a salad consisting of mostly bacon toppings in a grocery store to-go container. Tony, nonplussed, just tossed her the snack sized bag of blueberries that he pulled out of nowhere, to which Darcy piped up, "Cool! Free food."

He pointed at her dramatically. "Free equals cheap. Those blueberries cost more than some people's entire livelihood. I'd hardly consider them 'free'."

She lifted the bag in a mock toast. "Even better. Free rich people food."

Jane was a mess, frantically tidying up her hopelessly messy desk while the man was distracted with her intern's antics. "Mr. Stark, what can we help you with?"

Darcy, as blunt as ever followed up the question with her own interpretation. "I think that words the big boss lady is looking for are: what the actual fuck possessed you to take a trip to Nowhere New Mexico to visit a loony scientist and her oh-so charming assistant?"

"Darcy!" Jane admonished. It was their first time meeting the famous inventor and she worried that Darcy might offend him with her tendency to speak first and think later.

"Charming indeed," Tony agreed instead with a grin, but then he was all - albeit a bit sarcastically - business when he turned his attention back to Jane. "A little birdy told me Shield stole all of your toys, but only after your theories turned out not to be absolutely nuts. They also told me that" he paused, fiddling with a piece of machinery that was of Jane's usual design of being held together with duct tape. "you were having difficulty rebuilding."

"That one was there before the jack booted thugs made their way through our junk yard," Darcy contributed, referring to the object in his hands.

Tony just raised an eyebrow and set down the contraption. "I'm here to offer research funding and unlimited access to any of the facilities in Stark Tower. Newly completed. Very shiny."

Jane paused, her demeanor immediately weary. "And what would you get out of the deal?"

"Besides stealing you away from Shield? I get one of the top scientists in her field as part of my on-site team." He glanced over at Darcy. "And her assistant, the charming Double D."

"It's Darcy, dude." She threw a blueberry at him.

He shrugged. "We got a deal, Galileo?"

Jane took a moment to consider, or pretend to consider, because she wasn't blind to fact that she could really use the funding, and she wasn't too proud to accept it if it meant getting Thor back sooner. "I believe we have a deal Mr. Stark."

* * *

Anthony Edward Stark was a man who did good things, but that didn't necessarily make him a good man. He'd made many mistakes over the course of his lifetime, and he'd made many premeditated and intentional decisions that he would later come to view as mistakes.

Some of his mistakes weren't as bad as some of others. Hacking into the pentagon? That was a small thing, something that he might still do today out of boredom; maybe change the screensaver of every computer in the building to a picture of a tiny kitten dressed like Iron Man or something. Then there were the mistakes he would take back in a heartbeat, despite the fact that he couldn't bring himself to regret the results of their happening; namely, the whole Ten Rings debacle that led to his creation of the Iron Man suit and settling down with the woman he loved.

One such mistake was made following the death of his parents during a string of grief fueled bad decisions, where he took the physical pleasures in life in exchange for the emotional. Binge drinking and a different woman in his bed every night was the standard for years, and all it took was one careless night where the two had been mixed.

It was a great deal easier to pay off the press in the 90s. Information took much longer to circulate in a time before the evolution of instantly reportable news via social media, and it wasn't a difficult feat to nip unwanted leaks in the bud. If one mistake, Obadiah Stane, quietly signed over all of the parental rights to a child Tony had accidentally fathered, no one else knew the difference. And if he made sure to be extra careful after that to make sure the situation didn't happen again, no one mentioned anything. Tony'd never met the child; never even knew the child existed. The incident was so far gone from all minds that he never would have considered that the folder in Coulson's hand when the man walked into Stark Tower would hold the result of that series of mistakes from so long ago, but it would change everything for Tony.

"Phil!" Pepper greeted the man who had just overridden the security protocols – that Tony had personally typed letter for letter into JARVIS' programming – in order to access the penthouse level of the building and crash their celebratory fun times with his super secrety agenty reporty stuff. "Come in."

"I can't stay," he replied, oozing professional detachment despite the familiar twinkle in his eye.

"Phil?" Tony stood up, following Pepper – she was padding her way over to Agent Coulson, who had just stepped out of the elevator – a with a glass of freshly poured champagne in his hand. "Uh, his first name is Agent," he pointed out like it was obvious.

Pepper ignored him. "Come on in, we're celebrating."

"Which is why he can't stay," Tony half-heartedly argued, a tense smile on his face. He would play at being sarcastically uninterested, but he knew that if Coulson was breaking into his penthouse to personally contact him instead of just having a SHIELD lackey send a gift basket then things had to be seriously wrong.

As if reading his mind, he held out the black, leather case – thin enough to be a folder – that had previously been tucked under his arm along with a manila file that he kept. "We need you to look this over. As soon as possible."

Tony gave slight shake of the head. "I don't like being handed things." It was like Schrödinger's cat. As soon as he opened that file, it solidified whatever information was in it and made it real, which meant that he'd actually have to deal with it.

"That's fine, because I love to be handed things." Pepper offered him her glass of champagne, taking the leather folder in exchange. "So, let's trade." She reached out and nabbed the other glass from Tony's hand, placing the file onto the now empty appendage. "Thank you," she said, downing the last of the bubbly liquid from her new flute.

Tony was having none of it. After a pause, he started fidgeting with the new object in his hand and said, "Official consulting hours are between eight and five every other Thursday."

"This isn't a consultation," Coulson interjected.

"Is this about the Avengers?" Pepper asked as Tony flipped open the cover. It produced a release sound and the contents lit up on the tablet screen held within. She paused. "Which I… I know nothing about."

"The Avengers Initiative was scrapped, I thought," Stark huffed, turning to walk away from the pair, screen still active in his hands. "And I didn't even qualify."

"I didn't know that either," she quipped.

"Yeah," he continued, ignoring her. "Apparently I'm volatile, self-obsessed, don't play well with others."

"That, I did know," Pepper sighed, rolling her eyes in only semi-seriousness.

"This isn't about personality profiles anymore," Coulson informed them.

"Whatever." He snipped, tapping at the screen. "Miss Potts. Got a second?" He continued tapping, setting up the information to be downloaded onto JARVIS's servers. He glanced up when he felt Pepper approach. "You know," he said quietly to her. "I thought we were having a moment."

"I was having twelve percent of a moment." She smirked, but her face fell serious as she leaned in closer for more privacy. "This seems serious. Phil's pretty shaken." She turned her head to look back at the man in question before looking back at Tony when he gave his response.

"How did you notice?" he asked, facing her head on. "Why is he 'Phil'?"

But she was distracted looking down at the table he had lain down onto the table. "What is all of this?"

"This is, uh…" He swiped up on the screen using both fingers, extending his arms forward and sending holographs of the information onto the projectors in front of them for viewing. "This." Each screen held the information and video footage regarding the other candidates for the Avengers Initiative. Tony recognized the Patriotic Popsicle, the Green Goliath, and that Buff Space Dude from New Mexico. One screen, however, held the footage of a man he didn't recognize hijacking what looked to be the Tesseract; an artifact that Tony only knew about through his father's research.

Pepper let out a breath. "I'm going to take the jet to D.C. tonight."

"Tomorrow."

"You have homework. You have a lot of homework." She didn't even take her eyes off of the images in front of her as she spoke.

"Well, what if I didn't?" His argument was half-hearted at best. The seriousness of the situation was putting a damper on his previously celebratory mood.

"If you didn't?" She raised an eyebrow, letting her gaze fall on his pleading face.

"Yeah."

"You mean if you finished?" Tony nodded, catching her flirtatious tone despite the tense atmosphere. "Well, um...then..." she leaned in and whispered into his ear. He gasped dramatically, making eye contact with Coulson and enjoying the look of awkward embarrassment in the agent's face before he looked away from the pair.

 _That's what he gets for ruining celebratory fun time with this potential end of the world business._

"Square deal," he agreed with a curt nod as Pepper pulled away. "Fly safe."

She smiled affectionately, giving him a tender kiss before walking off to get her flight squared away. "Work hard." She waved goodbye to Coulson on her way out.

Tony swiped his hands at the screen with the mysterious scepter wielding villain, grabbing onto the image of the Tesseract and pulling it out in holograph form. He turned around to face Coulson, who was still standing in his doorway.

"What do you want, Secret Agent Man?" he asked, crushing the image of the Tesseract, which scattered the fragments that remained and sent them floating back to the holographic screen he'd taken them from. "You've already delivered me the goods, no need to stick around for tea."

Coulson, unfettered by the attitude being sent his way, pulled out the manila folder that Tony had noticed earlier. "I actually have more information for you regarding a different topic; some particulars regarding Jane Foster's intern that we feel might be pertinent to you given recent developments. Hard copy only, that way you can dispose of the documents should you feel that you… don't want this information shared."

"You did a background check on my employees?" He didn't touch the folder that was being held out to him. Another Schrödinger's cat situation, and the last one had already been a doosy.

"We'd already started the process before you picked them up." _From under our nose_ was implied.

Tony's relationship with Darcy Lewis was an intricate one. They both played as casual sarcasm and scathing but playful remarks. She was one of the few people in his life that he had taken an instant liking to, and from that very first moment in the New Mexico desert when he'd walking into Jane Foster's lab he was rooting for her. Jane herself wasn't so bad, but Darcy was still so young. She was really only just starting to make her way into the world and he, for some crazy reason, wanted to see her succeed, so instead of just offering a job to Jane like he had originally planned, he extended a place to her sarcastic assistant at well. His paternal affection for the woman was something that surprised him, and it was something that neither openly acknowledged. Though Jane had commented once how she wouldn't be surprised if he stole her ex-intern to do bigger, better things within the Stark company.

Tony stared at the folder in Agent Coulson's outstretched hand for a moment, eyebrows furrowed. He made an important, life-changing decision then and there. He took a deep breath before reaching out to grab the file and flipping it open to the first page.

* * *

Darcy draped herself over Jane's desk, bumping the scientist's still scribbling hand off of a slightly wrinkled piece of paper "You need to get laid."

"Darcy."

She propped her chin up using the palm of her right hand, using the left to nab the pen from Jane and making sure that her elbow covered a good chunk of the paper that the older woman had been working on. With this new angle she was able to return to a half seated position on to her favorite spin-y stool while still impeding her pet scientist's work. "No, I get it. You're saving yourself for Space Prince."

"Darcy–"

She sighed, rolling her eyes. "Well, I need to get laid at least."

"Darcy!"

"What? All I'm saying is that it's been a while and my girl bits are starting to get restless." She wiggled her hips to emphasize her point

Jane sighed at her antics and massaged the crinkle out of her own forehead with the side of her thumb. "Darcy, I really need to focus. I've almost figure out—"

"Nu-uh. Jane, you are required a 45-minute break for every six hours of work by law, and I am here to make sure that you get it."

"Darcy, the exact wording is 'entitled' to a 45-minute break. I don't have to take it if I don't want to."

"Oh, my mistake. Jane, you are required to take a 45-minute break for every six hours of work by me, and I am here to make sure you get it."

She looked like she was getting ready to argue again but the pair was interrupted by Tony sauntering in. "Do you two realize you say each other's name in almost every sentence? Are you not sure who you're talking to?"

"Naw, man." Darcy spun around in her stool, overshooting by a stretch and needing to wiggle back around the opposite direction to face the genius, but not before knocking one of her knees against her boss's desk. "Jane has this habit of talking to herself while she's working and I used to get confused and think she was talking to me. I just started ignoring her until she said my name, and then I started doing it back to make fun of her, and now it's just kind of stuck."

"I didn't pay attention to a single word you just said, Lewis." Tony's smirk couldn't quite hide the unusually serious look in his eyes.

She grinned. "Yeah, you did, and you're going to use that genius mind of yours to somehow take this new information and use it as a form of future embarrassment or blackmail."

"Yes, I am." He stared that the taser toting brunette just long enough for the silence that invaded the room to become awkward, something that had never really happened between the two of them before. It threw Darcy off a bit.

"So… the lights flickered a little while ago." She said, attempting to get the conversation back to its usual flow of back-and-forth sarcastic banter. "Let me guess. Science! made something go boom up in Stark Land."

Pulling himself out of his thoughts, Tony gave a distracted answer instead of throwing the ball of sass back into her end of the proverbial court. "We disconnected the tower from the city's power grid. We're fully self-sustaining now." As per custom, Tony pulled out a snack size bag of blueberries out of one of his invisible pockets and tossed it to the former-intern-turned-payed-assistant before addressing the head boss-lady of the lab.

"You're enabling her addiction," Jane sighed, giving up on getting any work done in the near future. Between Darcy and Tony, she would be bugged and distracted until Darcy forcefully kicked her out of the lab at the end of the day by having Jarvis turn off all the overhead lights then lock the door behind them when Jane scampered off to find a portable illumination device.

Darcy gasped, waving her free hand in front of her chest dramatically. "Was that a joke, Janie dear?"

"Don't get used to it. I'm hoping if I appease you then you'll let me finish my work."

"No-can-do, Galileo. You've got places to be. Chop, chop." He snapped his fingered in time with each "chop".

"What are you talking about, Tony?"

"I mean, it's vacation time. You've saved up enough, probably, and I'm sending you far away to do whatever vacation-y things it is that non-billionaires do. My treat."

Both women sat in silence; Darcy in awe and Jane in suspicion. "Why?" the younger woman asked.

It was as if drawing his eyes over to look at her was simultaneously impossible to resist, yet the hardest thing that he had ever had to do, but he did it. "There's a bit of a situation that needs to be handled by us big bad superhero types. SHIELD wanted me to send you guys to Norway under some fake guise of a research project, I figured if I'm gonna send you somewhere to keep you safe I might as well make it a fun time.

Jane was having none of it. "What kind of a situation?"

"The kind that involves a magic man with a battery box and a powerful stick that can bend you to his will."

"I'm pretty sure there's an innuendo in there somewhere," Darcy announced, standing up with a huff. "But I've had enough of magic men and their destructive tendencies, so unless this involved my main lady's main man, Thor, I'm all for vacation time."

When Tony didn't immediately respond, Jane's suspicion tripled. "It doesn't involved Thor, right?"

He gave an over-dramatic sigh. "Not directly." He continued before Jane could further interject. "However, according to the data that Patches and the SHIELD Squad sent my way – which I did _not_ tell you about – his crazy horse-fucking brother is here to send his regards in boot-vs-ant fashion."

"Oh," Jane seemed to be at a loss for words. "And Thor… he–"

"Hasn't shown up in a blazing fury to kick some Asgardian ass, no." Tony was getting fidgety. He needed to leave to finish preparing before suiting up and heading out, but he had to make sure that these two women were one their way to safety first.

"And I can't do anything to help?" She was reaching for something, anything that would make her feel less like a damsel in distress.

"You can keep working on that Einstein-Rosen bridge of yours and stay safe long enough to finish it."

She stared at him for a long time before saying, "Okay."

Darcy's eyes widened. "I can't even get her to take a food break some times and after five minutes you get her to drop all of her work for a little fun in the sun? That is way not fair."

"It's one mad genius to another, kid." Jane made no response to his referring to her as a 'mad genius'. "Now both of you need to skedaddle off and get packing. The jet leaves in just over and hour."

"Wait, I'm actually going too?" Darcy almost dropped her blueberries. "I didn't actually think that I was." Tony gave her a look like she had just dibbled on her shirt. "No, seriously. Jane's all important and science-y and stuff. Plus, she's Thor's hot mama, and those are both good reasons why she might not be 100% safe just chillaxing here. Hell, if I were Loki I would totally target Jane." She looked over at her main science lady muttering a, "Sorry, Jane" before continuing. "I'm just the intern though, so why am I going?"

"You're not an intern anymore," Jane reminded her.

"I do basically the same thing," she replied.

Tony was at a loss for words on how to respond to her. He hadn't expected her to question the decision. Even Jane was just going along with all of it instead of arguing like she usually would. "You… You're obviously going to assist Jane."

"Assist her in vacationing?" her brow shot up and he panicked a bit seeing such a familiar expression on a face that wasn't his own.

"Yes." He mentally shook himself. _Pull yourself together, Tony._ "No more questions! I need you safe and that's that so get packing." He spun on his heal and raced out before either woman could fully register what had just happened.

"I guess… we should go grab what we'll need." Jane could feel the confusion in the air caused by the shift in Tony's attitude. Maybe it was just the whole situation with Loki, but she got the feeling that it was more than that.

"Yeah," Darcy murmured. "we should."


	2. Stupid Science Gala

Tony, being a man of little trust in higher authorities to handle situations like this to his liking, was keeping a close eye on the activities of SHIELD. Specifically, he'd hacked their locating system to monitor the progress on tracking Loki. He'd fought  
mortal men who were able to put his loved ones in more danger than he'd thought possible. He wasn't taking his chances with a mentally unbalanced god. From the data that JARVIS had gathered, they were sweeping every wirelessly accessible camera on  
the planet – cellphones, laptops and the like. If it connected to a satellite, it was their eyes and ears. The data flowing through the facial recognition being run by SHIELD was simultaneously flashing across the screens Tony had set up around his  
personal work station at Stark Tower. He had his suit on hand and was ready to fly out as soon as a match was made.

This time, Tony was keeping those close to him out of the line of fire. Pepper was on a private jet marked for one of the smaller DC office, much to her chagrined, and Darcy…

He sighed. He didn't really know what to make of the whole situation with Darcy, especially after having it dropped on him in the middle of a crisis. He just needed to keep her safe long enough to beat the bad guy, let things settle, and then maybe figure  
it out on the fly after that. Even more so than Pepper, Tony needed her as far away from the action as possible, so he sent her and her pet astrophysicist half way across the world with the hasty excuse of unused vacation time. Well, he knew that  
like himself, Jane had trouble separating work from play, so he sent them on a pseudo vacation that promised connections for the scientist and free drinks for Darcy.

"Sir." JARVIS' voice rung through the room, breaking Tony out of his musings. "Shield's systems have reported a sighting. Sixty-seven percent match." There was a pause. "Seventy-nine percent."

He let out a deep breath, taking several lengthy strides across the room to where his suit was stored. "Location?"

"Stuttgart, Germany." Tony halted midstride. He was sure that the shrapnel in his chest had finally reached his heart because it seemed to stop abruptly and grow so heavy that he could feel it sink into his gut. "Sir, he appears to in attendance of Stuttgart  
Science Gala

* * *

"You know, when Tony said vacation I envisioned warm sun and sandy beaches, not snotty doctors in fancy dresses." Darcy tugged a strand of hair loose from her elegantly coifed updo. It was too perfect and she needed to fix that. The air-conditioning-induced  
breeze blew a couple other bits loose and she could see them tumbling down the sides of her face in the rear view mirror from the back seat of whatever expensive brand of car she and her boss currently sat in. That fancy stylist would have a conniption  
if she saw the Darcy version of her masterpiece, but the former intern was happy with it. "I mean, like, girls gone wild level craziness. The kind where I don't actually remember half of the trip."

"Darcy, can you please not?" Jane was fidgeting in her fancy designer gown, and it didn't miss her assistant's notice that the woman had been brought and deep blue elegant piece of fashion while she was provided a black cocktail dress – one that cost  
more than her entire college tuition and actually managed to look sexy without being slutty with its high neck and flared hemline, but still.

"Come on," she pouted. "You have to admit that you're as uncomfortable as I am."

"Only because of the dress code." A muttered ' _I'm pretty sure you and I got a different dress code,'_ from Darcy."This is a good networking opportunity." Jane blushed a pretty shade of pink. "And people… people actually want to discuss theory  
with me now."

"Aww." The younger women felt a warm glow of affection intrude on her otherwise drab mood. "You're so cute when you get all Humble Genius."

"Shut up." Her favorite scientist stuck her tongue out in a moment of comfortable childishness, but they were both soon distracted as their driver pulled up to the imposing Stuttgart Museum. Being escorted out onto a roped off golden carpet really put  
things in perspective. There were cameras flashing left and right and Darcy had to wonder if any of them even knew who the two women were.

Jane remained poised and controlled under the gala limelight, a feat that her companion had an endless stock of respect for. She took the lead, answering any questions that the media frenzy directed their way, while Darcy hung back and made the occasional  
– but situationally appropriate, gosh Janie – quips that got a chuckle out of those who held the microphones. The 20 feet of carpet felt like 20 miles as more and more reporters realized that Jane was the mind and developer of the Foster Theory, which  
had soaked its way into even the tiniest crevasses of the scientific community following SHIELDs release of Jane's findings after she became an official Stark employee. They mostly left Darcy alone once they figured out she was just the comic-relief  
side-kick, though there were some who made not so subtle, not to mention oh-so-insulting, references to various parts of her body.

By the time the two finally reached the front steps of the museum Darcy was exhausted. Jane was still in a Science! glow, but Darcy's feet were already killing her, and one of her garter clips had come undone and she needed to find an area that was less  
crowded – _did this museum even have a bathroom inside –_ to readjust without giving anyone a show.

It really should have come as no surprise that she would trip as she made her way up the stairs. A caught heel, because really _that dog gamn dress was ridiculous and who needs to walk anyway,_ and suddenly she was much farther forward that she meant  
to be. If only that were the worst of itthough; no, falling onto the steps would be ten times less embarrassing than actually falling onto a human being. It's not like he was there half a second earliereither. He just happened to cross  
her path the exactly moment her body decided to say, "fuck it". Dude must've been a ninja though, because he not onlymanaged to avoid most of her descending body, but grabbedher waist quick enough to guide her body _around_ his and  
into this – actually smooth AF – dip that probably looked like it was some rehearsed waltz-ish dance or whatever (Darcy is very familiar with the grinding kind of dancing, but anything that requires actual choreography and practice just concludeswith  
her on her ass). She was colored impressed, as heappearedto be holding the majority of her body weight in midair with no issue and hadsomehow notallowed any part of her flailing upper body to come in contact with the stairs.

Her eyes must have been the size of a hyperbolicallylarge objectin her shock, but despite that her line of vision narrowed to the man's face taking up most of the view. Dude was handsome in an older-and-experienced-but-still-got-some-juvinile-playfulness-thing-going-on  
kind of way. If her breath wasn't already nonexistent from, you know, falling, it might have been a little on the airy side. Also, dude had the bluest damn eyes she'd ever seen. They almost didn't seem real, like the sort of artificial intensity you  
get from colored contacts, but she didn't see the subtle outline of any lenses around his iris to confirm this. Could also just be super rad genetics.

"Thanks, man." _Oh, really fucking eloquent, Darcy. A real Shakespeare you are._ He gave her a barely-there smirk and lifted her back into a standing position, before striding off without a word. He exited off to the side, weaving through the crowd  
of photographers and into the shadow of the night. The only thing that she could think to say in response was, "wow, those arms could probably liftfive of me with no strain."

"Darcy? There you are!" Jane grabbed her arm, shaking her from her reverie over the other things those arms could do for her. "I lost you for a second. We should head inside now."

"Yeah, k. "

* * *

Darcy was bored out of her mind. Jane had immediately been assimilated into the crowd of fellow Science! enthusiasts, leaving her to just sort of stand around spacing out. She couldn't even find a hot dude to get her flirt on with because scientists were  
apparently all super old, Jane being the singular exception. That didn't stop creepy old men from asking her to dance and letting their hands wander a little too low for her tastes. After the third time she just started turning down any invitations  
sent her way. The champagne here was great, but wouldn't get her plastered enough to make _that_ something she'd be willing to put up with anytime soon.

She wondered where Mr. Arms from earlier went off to, or even if he was at the event at all. He had that super-secret-agent-security-type thing going on, so he was probably off guarding whatever precious cargo the museum had to hide; that is if he was  
even there at all. Who knows, maybe he was just a dude passing by. Such a shame.

Darcy soon discovered that she could only pretend to mingle with people for so long. Everyone here was straight laced and boring. One sentence in and she couldn't actually understand what they were saying because all anyone ever brought up was science-y  
mumbo jumbo. Where was the juicy gossip about with marine biologist got down with which chemist?

It was truly a lavish event, with tinkle-y lights and a small orchestra playing in the background. After escaping the drone of work-speak, Darcy found herself wandering up a set of marble stairs that gave off an "out of bounds" vibe, but hey, there wasn't  
any signage or manly men to keep her away. There was a singular someone walking down as she made her way up, however. She did her best to not stare at the guy, mostly because if she ignored him he would be more likely not to stop her if she actually  
wasn't allowed to go this way. She couldn't help her eyes being drawn to him though. He was rather well dressed in his suit. The long overcoat, green decorative scarf, and golden cane seemed to fit him to a T and hugged what looked to be a rather  
impressive lean but muscular figure. What really drew her gaze though was the fact that despite his put together ensemble of clothes and definitive swagger, his pallor was almost sickly with hair just a little too oily and skin just a little too taut  
and pale against his defined bone structure. He glanced up and met her eyes and she couldn't help the shiver that went down her spine. It wasn't a pleasant shiver either. Something about him seemed oddly familiar. He had eyes the same shade of blue  
as Mr. Arms but they seemed even less natural on him, glinting with something a bit less than sane. He didn't say a word, but sent her a slight smirk before continuing his way down to the rest of the party.

Darcy paused, her head turning to allow her gaze to follow him even as he completely ignored her. Something felt wrong and even though she couldn't bring herself to move, the slight panic that settled over her made her want to grab Jane and just get the  
hell out of there and back to their hotel room. She closed her eyes, taking a calming breathe and telling herself that everything was fine. She was overreacting because of the weird circumstances surrounding the entire vacation. She and Jane were  
safe and at the opposite end of the world from where all the actual weird shit was happening.

She had just gotten her pulse to slow enough to be considered average when the screaming started.

 _I fucking knew it!_

Her fight or flight system must be really out of wack, because after kicking herself into gear she ended up running toward the screaming instead of away from it. She couldn't get the image of Jane stuck in a room with the crazy cane-man out of her head  
and that worry overrode any fear she might have had over her own safety.

She turned the corner just in time to see Mr. Psycho Eyes flip some old guy over onto a marble table and then plunge some creepy alien-looking thing into his face. At this point the screams got louder and everyone who hadn't already started running from  
the room and out of the building. Darcy couldn't see Jane anywhere in the masses and hoped that she was safe. She remained frozen on the stairs and stabby-mcstab relaxed his grip on his handy dandy eyeball gouger and looked around. He turned far enough  
that she could see the expression of manic glee on his face and as if he sensed her presence, his head twisted farther around and he met her eyes once again. Nausea bloomed across her abdomen as he let out a chuckle, but otherwise ignored her, choosing  
instead to follow the flow of people out the front doors.

Her jaw dropped as his suit and cane began to glow golden then morphed into a dangerous looking scepter and very strap-y looking leather and armor getup. What really caught her attention was the giant ass horned helmet that now sat atop his head, which  
she immediately recognized from her research on Norse Mythology back during her time as an intern in Puente Antiguo.

"Loki?"

Darcy was torn between getting as far away as possible and following him. She still didn't know where Jane was, and she had no clue why Thor's brother would be on this end of the planet. Tony said that he was sending them away from the psycho magic man,  
not straight to him. She only started following slowly behind – trailing back far enough that she lost him as he stepped outside and she had to catch up without making too much noise – because she'd already survived the killer robot from New Mexico  
and this guy seemed way less laser powered than his pet.

That was, at least until he blasted a police car so hard that is did a flip that would make any Olympic diver jealous.

"Shit. Shit, shit, shit, shit." The fear was palpable. The crowd of people that had escaped the museum was scattering in all directions, only to backtrack as another Loki appeared in their path. He was herding them all into one center mass. One image  
of him flickered into being no more than ten feet in front of where she was hiding behind a marble column and she had to cover her mouth with her hand to keep from squeaking and drawing its attention, even as said hand was shaking so bad it might  
have drawn attention on its own. Each Loki grinned as they raised their spears, fully entrapping the crowd.

"I said, KNEEL!" The panicking crowd became deathly quiet as they all dropped down to their knees like it was the only think keeping them between life and death. If his hissy fit before was any indication, it likely was. The – she was only assuming –  
real Loki smiled, a full faced grin that added to his creepy score. He took a step towards his cowering sheep, ignoring their flinches as he spread his arms like a welcoming shepherd. "Is this not this simpler? Is this not your natural state? It's  
the unspoken truth of humanity, that you crave subjugation." He spoke in a soft tone, like a parent explaining to a young child that they were only punishing them because they loved them. It was almost hypnotic if not for the fact that it was utter  
bull shit. "The bright lure of freedom diminishes your life's joy in a mad scramble for power, for identity. You were made to be ruled. In the end, you will always kneel."

There was silence and nobody moved for what felt like an eternity before Darcy witnessed as a singular person, an older grandfatherly looking man, raised himself from the ground and stood tall.

"Not to men like you."

Loki chuckled. "There are no men like me."

"There are always men like you."

He just sighed, holding out his scepter. "Look to your elder, people." Darcy's heard dropped as the end began glowing a vibrant blue. "Let him be an example." A beam shot out the curved tip, heading straight toward the old man.

* * *

Alexei: I made up the name "Stuttgart Science Gala". I looked online and could only find reference to the "Stuttgart Gala" but not what the gala itself was for. I used a bit of creative integrity to give Tony a reason to send my two favorite women there.  
I also decided that the "museum" in which it took place needed from front stairs, so that's a little different than what's on the movie (where the entrance is flat).


	3. Darcy Calls Captain All The Names

_There was silence and nobody moved for what felt like an eternity before Darcy witnessed as a singular person, an older grandfatherly looking man, raised himself from the ground and stood tall._

 _"Not to men like you."_

 _Loki chuckled. "There are no men like me."_

 _"There are always men like you."_

 _He just sighed, holding out his scepter. "Look to your elder, people." Darcy's heart dropped as the end began glowing a vibrant blue. "Let him be an example." A beam shot out the curved tip, heading straight toward the old man._

* * *

It connected with a resonating boom, but it wasn't the old man that is connected with. Captain Fucking America stood from where he had hunched behind his shield after having landed in front of the civilian in just enough time to block the blast. Never mind the fact that he was supposed to be dead in the Arctic Ocean, the entire situation was almost worth it to see the stream of light bounce back and knock Loki on his ass. Almost. Not really. Darcy was still scared shitless, but it would definitely be a fun story for later if she – and Jane – survived.

Red-White-&-Blue just stood all majestically and shit before walking toward psycho numero uno, who was getting back up to his feet as his doubles flickered out of existence.

"You know, the last time I was in Germany," America The Beautiful began. As he spoke, a couple of the civilians he passed popped up off their knees in support of their unlikely hero. "and saw a man standing above everybody else, we ended up disagreeing."

Loki was up before he had finished, staring that the Star Spangled Man with a Plan like prey ( _I'd eat him up too,_ Darcy's mind supplied unhelpfully). "The soldier. A man out of time."

Apple Pie gave a smirk that would melt the panties off of any hot blooded American woman. "I'm not the one who's out of time." On cue, a super spy-looking jet arrived, hovering behind Mr. Patriotic himself and pointing a rather big, scary looking gun in Loki's, and subsequently Darcy's, direction.

Darcy had never really found herself attracted to women, but the voice that blared out of the jet might just have caused a bisexual awakening in her. What the fuck was up with superhero's and being so unbelievably attractive?

"Loki, drop the weapon and stand down." Loki ignored the order and instead channeled his inner greased lightning and sent a beam toward the aircraft, a beam that was expertly avoided by the red-headed spyssassin piloting. It was enough of a distraction for Land of The Free to throw his shield and catch Loki off guard.

'Okay, okay, okay! deep breaths. he's distracted by the Ghost of America's Past. Now is the perfect time to find Jane.' Only it wasn't because that shield kept flying everywhere and lasers kept beaming out of Loki's staff, and the idea of accidentally getting hit by either of those was _really_ off-putting. Still, Darcy took a careful step out from behind the marble column she'd been using as cover. She needed a better angle if she was going to search the crowd for Jane. Already, everyone was scrambling away from the two battling figures. Men and women of all ages, some of which she had spoken with inside, were running off in all directions. Jane could be any one of them, and Darcy called out her name, looking everywhere for that deep blue gown. "Jane?!"

She kept part of her attention on the fighting out of the corner of her eye, moving closer with each call for her friend until she was down at the bottom of the steps, trying to find a safe route around. Loki was all magic and weaponry, using his spear to knock the Captain off balance, but Mr. USA held his own fairly well with hand-to-hand moves that reminded Darcy of the old boxing videos that her grandfather used to watch. Most of the crowd had dispersed by that point though, and Jane was still nowhere in sight

Her attention was drawn away from both the fight and her search for Jane by the sudden sound of ACDC permeating the area. Both Loki and Captain Rogers paused in their attacks and all three watched in confusion as a small ball of light grew rapidly in the distance. It was easy to recognize the suit, and ego, of Tony Stark flying it's way into battle, even from that distance. When he was close enough that Darcy could make out the shape of his helmet, he righted himself in midair and sent a blast from his hand repulsors at Loki. He went flying backwards and Darcy shrieked as he crashed into the steps at her feet. For the second time that night she lost her balance, but this time there was no hot-arms-guy to save her and she landed straight on her ass, scrambling away from, and likely flashing, the god. Loki struggled to sit up straight, and Tony - with the Ice-Pop Patriot at his side - casually strolled over with what looked like every weapon in his suit popping out and preparing for fire.

"Make your move, Reindeer Games." Loki seemed to realize he was outnumbered in this instance, and slowly raised both palms up as a signal of surrender. "Good move."

Tony's face mask lifted up and he looked up at Darcy as Loki's golden armor faded back into what looked to be a standard Asgardian-style garment. "You okay there, short stack?"

"Better than I was five minutes ago," Darcy let out a breathy response, she leaned farther back as Loki tilted his head to get a look at her, a gleam of recognition in his eyes. "Though it would help if you didn't throw crazed gods in my direction anymore."

"Noted." Tony nodded his head toward the landing jet behind him, not taking his eyes off of Darcy. "Captain."

"Mr. Stark."

"You wanna escort Mr. Leather Fetish here to a place he can be properly chained up?"

"On it," Let Freedom Ring grabbed Loki's arm with one hand and his discarded scepter with the other, marching them over to the opening loading bay of the Jet. Tony relaxed a fraction, the weapons of his suit retracting.

"Are you injured?" He seemed hesitant to move any closer to her, though the look of worry was evident in his eyes.

"I'm fine." Darcy assured him, pulling herself off the ground only to nearly fall back again as he lost her balance for a moment. "I wasn't with everyone else. Hid behind a pillar for most of it all, but I can't seem to find-"

"Darcy!" She whipped her head around toward the sound of the voice of the one person she'd been looking for since everything started turning upside down.

"JANE!" She bolted toward her boss and best friend, who was just exiting the museum with a worried look on her face. "Where have you been?!" she shrieked, drawing the woman into a bone crushing embrace.

"I was in the bathroom when I heard screaming." Darcy could feel the shiver that went through the older woman. "I locked the door and hid in the stall. I only came out after hearing music start to blare."

She pulled back, holding Jane at arms length and staring at her like she grew an extra head. "You were hiding in the bathroom this whole time?" A hysterical giggled escaped Darcy's lips when she gave a hesitant nod of affirmation, then she pulled her back in for a hug before anyone could catch her leaking eyes. "I was so worried."

Jane didn't respond, just tightened her grip and nodded.

"I hate to break this up," Tony coughed from behind them. "But we kind of gotta skedaddled, and I am not leaving you behind."

Darcy sniffled, and subtly wiped her eyes before pulling away from her favorite scientist and turning to glare halfheartedly at Tony. "Next time send us to Norway."

* * *

The woman known as The Black Widow - Darcy had heard enough about her from Tony's ranting about SHIELD spying on him, to know that she was as deadly as the name implied - spoke quietly into her headset from the pilot's seat while Tony and the Captain whispered harshly to each other in an argument that Darcy couldn't make out.

She and Jane were sat across from the bound-in-cuffs Loki, and while it was difficult not to let herself catch his curious, and freaking obvious, stare she did her best by keeping her boss engaged in small talk about how weird the whole situation was.

The jet was tense and quiet, only occasionally broken up by mild turbulence that shook the cabin. After another five minutes of hushed conversation and being hyper-aware of Loki's gaze, Darcy stood up with a huff and wandered over to the two still hovering behind the Widow.

"I don't like it," she heard the Captain whisper harshly to Tony.

"What? Rock of Ages giving up so easily?" Tony glanced back, catching Darcy's approach but not giving her any indication that privacy was needed.

"I don't remember it ever being that easy," he admitted, looking back as well, his gaze landing on her for only a moment before moving on to Loki. "This guy packs a wallop."

"Still, you are pretty spry for an older fellow." Tony shifted, opening up the conversation to include a third. "What do you think his thing is? Pilates?"

"What?"

"Tony," Darcy admonished. "He's right. This is the guy that nearly leveled a town because he was angry about being adopted."

"The one where you saved all those puppies?"

"Tony!"

He sighed. "A) It was really more of a village, and B) it was his robo-toy that did all the dirty work."

"Tony, I'm serious," she growled, her annoyance seeming magnified by the sound of thunder off in the distance. "I would gladly trade barbs with you any other day, but… you saw the footage. If the mythology and evidence line up like they seem to then he shouldn't have been that easy to take down, even with the both of you." She glanced over at the Captain, who was looking at her curiously.

He suddenly stuck out his right hand, a small smile perking his lips up. "I don't believe we've officially met. I'm Steve."

"Nope!" Tony declared. "None of that!"

"What?" Steve looked as confused as Darcy felt, his hand falling limply back to his side before she could give it a shake.

"You do not get to go 'apple pie' on my-" Tony seemed to choke of the sentence, and the sounds of thunder grew. Minor turbulence shook the cabin. "M-my lab monkey."

"Excuse me?" She looked at him like he'd slapped her grandmother. "He wasn't-" she scoffed, "besides, he can 'apple pie' all he wants. You're not my-"

Suddenly lightning lit up the hold, thunder drowning out anything else that she might have said and causing everything around her to shake. Tony reached out to steady her, his metal hand gripping her arm to keep her from falling.

"Where's this coming from?" She heard the resident spyssassin ask, the thunder continuing to rumble overhead. Darcy looked back to see Jane clutching her safety belts with white knuckles. Loki appeared to be apprehensive staring out the window, and likely for good reason if what she assumed was correct.

"What's the matter?" Steve taunted him from behind her. "Scared of a little lightning?"

While he didn't necessarily come across as scared to Darcy, his uneasiness was otherwise palpable, and he kept his eyes on the crackling sky as he gave his response.

"I'm not overly fond of what follows."

Blinding light flashed as an enunciated thud could be heard through the roof, and the ship jolted harshly sending Darcy to the floor. Her dress - the stupid cocktail style torture device that she could not wait to burn - ripped up her thigh, though the sound of it doing so could not be heard over the roaring of the wind as the back ramp began to lower. 'Great, now I'm flashing _everyone_ ,' she groused in her head as her hair whipped in all directions, the pins that had been holding it up doing nothing to secure it against the harsh current wrenching through the cabin.

The ground jerked from underneath her again, and in the same instance a familiar figure landed on the open incline.

She's recognize that because-I'm-worth-it head of golden locks anywhere.

"THOR!"

His gaze had been fixed on Loki - his obvious target if the look of displeasure and the beelining of his strut meant anything - but it tore over to Darcy at the sound of his name. Confusion crumpled his brow, and he halted his steps towards his brother to turn toward her.

"Lady Darcy?"

"Thor!" If possible, he was even more shocked to recognize that it was Jane who sat across from Loki, still wearing her blue gown, strapped in tightly, and holding of dear life ('that must be nice' Darcy thought. She was pretty sure the wind was about to rip her own dress straight off).

"Jane!" Oh, there it was. That golden retriever smile. It was like he ran into her randomly at the store after a week instead of stumbled across her while going for his brother in a greased lighting rage after a year.

"Now there's that guy." Tony's voice carried over roar, and a pair of metal covered hands pulled Darcy back onto her feet. He had pulled his helmet back on while she was distracted with the weird god drama happening in front of them, obviously preparing to attack one or both of the princes.

"Another Asgardian?" the redhead yelled from the front seat, her hands flying over the controls in an effort to close the back hatch.

"Doesn't matter," Tony responded. "If he frees Loki or kills him the Tesseract is lost."

"His name is Thor!" Darcy cut in, holding her back back from her face as best she could. This fucking wind was going to make her want to shave it all off. "He's the prince of Asgard! Loki's brother!"

"Jane! Lady Darcy!" Said god's voice boomed above all other sound as their pilot manage to begin closing the ramp. "How did you end up present on this flying transport prison with that of the likes of Loki." He looked down at straps hold Jane in and the metal arms holding Darcy up and his voice took on a deadly edge. "Have you been held captive against your will by this metal man and his associates?"

"No!" Darcy assured him, scrambling away from Tony as Jane managed to unfasten the belts holding her in place. The ramp latched shut, the wind abruptly dying down and easing the women's approach to their protein blessed friend. "They saved us! They're friends."

His face eased again. "Then they have my thanks." He turned to Tony and Steve, completely ignoring his horse-fucking brother who didn't seem to mind in the least. "I do not know who you are or why you hold my brother under lock, but any ally of these women is an ally of mine."

Tony's face shield lifted, but his suit still whirred in anticipation. His eyes kept flickering from Darcy, to Thor, to Loki who had settled comfortably back into his chair and was ignoring them all sans a small mutter of 'you are _not_ my brother'.

"Does mother know you weareth her drapes?" he asked by way of introduction.

 _This was going to be a long ride._


	4. Waste of Taxpayer Dollars

**(A/N) You'll have to forgive my possible delays in posting. It's coming up on finals week and between college and work I'm a scatterbrained mess.**

* * *

"Holy dicks"

"Darcy, it that really the most appropriate thing to say right now?"

"Duh! You and I are seeing the same thing right now, right Jane?" There was no response but a sigh.

The two women were standing on the upper half of the bridge of the almighty, amazing, awesome, technologically advanced helicarrier. Darcy's inner broke college student couldn't help but be a bit peeved that SHEILD had all of this at their disposal and yet the taxpayers of the nation were stuck in overly cramped, micro-seats filled to the absolute max. Not that she was going to say anything while there. She didn't really feel like getting kicked off (she wasn't really even sure why she was here to begin with to be honest), and she could always complain to Jane about it after they were safely back on land.

The helicarrier hovered about a sea of clouds, sailing through them as smoothly as a jetty on a clear day. The urge to dive into them was present in the back of Darcy's mind, and she suddenly understood Tony's penchant for flying as high as he could just to plunge back down towards the earth. That exhilaration that came with letting go of control for just a moment. The feeling of freedom that accompanies the stomach drop that draws people to things like roller coasters and zip-lining. Not that she was planning to take up skydiving anytime soon. The idea of it seemed more appealing than the actual act.

She drew her eyes away from the floor to ceiling windows and the clouds beyond them. Bodies scurried around her and Jane in a flurry of activity, though she was pretty sure that one of the people at the computers across from her was playing some sort of video game (must be practicing for the impending alien invasion, _eyeroll_ ). The two women had been standing around on the bridge for the past hour, having been dropped off here as soon as their jet landed. Thor promised to join them after going to have a private chat with Loki, where ever it was that they stuck him, but until then they were stuck awkwardly shuffling out of the way of the people going by. Some acknowledged them, but most ignored them. She didn't actually know where everyone else had gone off to. She thought about attempting to find them, but the pair of guards stationed at each of the _very few_ exits were a very effective deterrent.

"I can't believe they don't have some kind of waiting room on this thing," she complained to her boss. "It's almost like they don't ever have any guests."

"On the contrary," A strong but feminine voice interrupted from behind them. "Generally our guests get stuck in a cell."

Darcy choked when she turned to find Natasha Romanov standing about a yard away. Not that she was supposed to know who that person was. She recognized her as soon as she saw the back of her head on the jet, but that was only because she had a pleasant browse through SHEILD's database post-Ipod larceny (there was a reason Jane kept her around, and it wasn't her pop tart toasting abilities) and pre-Tony ranting about Natalie Rushmore from Legal. Even then, most of her files were so heavily encrypted that going anywhere near them would have likely sent off alarm bells in their system. Best to just leave that be.

"Red hair? Well fitted coat? You must be a Romanov!"

"Darcy…" She always admired Jane's ability to secrete so much exasperation into one name.

"I know, Janey. It's technically a jacket, but coat just sounded better." It was a relief to catch the small smirk lift the corner of the assassins mouth out of the corner of her eye. Good, her lack of filter might not get her killed today then.

"Natasha," the older woman introduced herself. She didn't hold out a hand, instead choosing to remain standing with her stance wide and hands behind her back. 'parade rest,' Darcy's mind supplied.

"My name is Jane Foster." She gestured to the former intern. "And this is my assistant, Darcy Lewis."

The woman gave a nod, her eyes hovering on Darcy a little longer than they had Jane. "I've been briefed on your work. I've also been requested to escort you and your assistant to the lab to help facilitate our search for the tesseract."

Jane's brow crinkled. "My specialty is astrophysics. I'm not sure what I could do to help."

There was that slight smirk again. "I'm aware."

She turned on her heel, striding towards the closest exit slowly enough that they understood that they were to follow. The women dashed over to catch up, Darcy commenting breathlessly, "So, be honest. Thor kicked up a fuss about Jane not being near, didn't he?"

"Among others," Darcy could have swore there was a slight chuckle, though that might have just been a hallucination based on wishful thinking. She was too mysterious-assassin to do something as mundane as laughing. What she couldn't decipher, however, was whether the women meant that Thor made a fuss about more than just Jane or that more than Thor kicked up a fuss.

The guards they passed didn't step out of the way like she expected, but they made no comment or move to deter them as they walked past. The path they were escorted down was long and winding and full of metal walls and rails. It was almost claustrophobic when compared to the openness of the bridge. Sure, there were less bodies around to fill the space, but it was so much smaller that it didn't matter regardless. She wasn't sure how long they strode through the maze of corridors, but her breath was beginning to become light and airy in trying to keep up with the redhead's pace. Lab life was a sedentary one, her only exercise coming in the form of the occasional coffee run a couple floors up, and even that allowed for elevator access.

' _I should take up yoga again.'_

' _Romanoff is probably really freaking good at Yoga.'_

Not that her goal would be to take up a Black Widow level exercise regimen, but it wouldn't hurt to be able to run away from any Loki related danger that pops up (because all the danger they've faced thus far has been somehow Loki related).

After several twists and turns and even a couple sets of stairs, the hallway slowly widened and opened up into a series of glass encased labs. Darcy could pick out the group of super muscle-y men she was familiar with. Thor caught sight of them first, his head popping up like an excited puppy and a grin shining across his face despite the seriousness of the situation. Tony noticed them soon after, going so far as to step out of the lab as they walked up throwing an arm first around Darcy then, with some hesitation and a glance at Thor, Jane. Darcy wasn't sure if she imagined his gentle tug, guiding them away from the redhead in the skintight suit.

Captain Hotpants and an adorable frumpy looking science-type stood around a screen, watching intently as Thor came over to greet his Lady and her intern. Darcy recognized the sound of Loki's voice coming out.

"-cage-not built-me-"

The mysterious new scientist's brows wrinkled and Darcy felt the urge to wrap him in a blanket burrito and give him some herbal tea. Scientist wrangling skills strike again!

The man looked up from his intent scrutinization of the screen at Jane's gasp of, "Doctor Banner!"

He looked confused for a moment, his brow crinkling even further as he stared at the woman. "Oh, Doctor Foster. I didn't expect to meet you here." His face cleared and he stepped away from the screen, leaving only the Good Ol' Captain to keep surveillance over it. Loki's voice continued coming out, not carrying over well enough for Darcy to keep track of the conversation he was having with a deep voice that she didn't recognize.

Jane's level of fangirling was as high, if not higher, than that time Tony Stark had walked into their middle-of-nowhere New Mexico lab. Darcy recognized the name of the infamous biochemist, Bruce Banner, from her time at Culver. Everyone knew the story the man who turned into a giant green beast that put even the most 'roided football player to shame. She was having trouble amalgamating the image of the mass destruction causing creature with the demure scientist in front of her, but was soon pulled from her analysis by the other bodies in the room.

Steve let out a breath as the monitor he was watching went black.

"He really grows on you, doesn't he?" Bruce asked, having actually caught the tail of the video stream despite being caught up in Jane's greeting and subsequent fangirling (Darcy couldn't blame her, she had a tendency to fangirl herself).

"Loki's going to drag this out," Steve asserted in response now that the topic had been broached. "So, Thor, what's his play?"

Thor was uncharacteristically serious despite having his arms full of Jane. He tightened them slightly, as if to protect her from the subject at hand. "He has an army called the Chitauri," he confirmed. "They're not of Asgard or any world known. He means to lead them against your people. They will win him the earth. In return, I suspect, for the Tesseract."

"An Army? From outer space?" Darcy scoffed at the Captain's observation, as if that was the most worrying part about Thor's revelation. Tony raised an eyebrow from where he had yet to detach himself from her side, but made no comment.

"So he's building another portal," Bruce chimed in. "That's what he needs Erik Selvig for."

Thor's attention zeroed in on the doctor. "Selvig?"

"He's an astrophysicist."

"He's a friend."

"They took Erik?!" Jane screeched. "Is that why SHIELD tried to send us to Norway?"

"Norway would've been a better option," Darcy grumbled. "We were just lucky that Loki wasn't there for us specifically." She paused. "If lucky is what you'd call it."

The Captain's brow crumpled in confusion, an expression that would have been adorable if the situation was less dire. "Why would Loki target the two of you?"

 _Okay, offended_.

"Lady Jane and Lady Darcy were the first to greet me upon my arrival to your realm with Erik Selvig as their companion." Thor explained.

"Jane him with her van," Darcy piped up.

"Darcy tased him," Jane retorted.

"My Shield Sister did fell me with my own element," Thor confirmed, a fond smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.

"Yes, I did," she preened. "But mostly Jane is Thor's lady love, even if Loki dragged him back to Asgard before they could do the hot and heavy to make it official."

The good Captain sputtered and flushed a deep crimson. Jane similarly turned a dark shade of pink but Thor grinned wide, not an ounce embarrassed by Darcy's comments.

"Wait, I thought Erik was safe at some secret SHIELD lab," Jane cut in before more damage could be done to the poor Captain's sensibilities. "How the hell did Loki get to him?"

"Loki has him under some kind of spell," Natasha spoke for the first time since escorting the with two women over. "Along with one of ours."

Something about what she said rung in the back of Darcy's mind, the cogs beginning to spring to life. She may not understand all of the nuances of the situation, but she could tell that something was off about it all. _But what is it?_

"I wanna know why Loki let us take him," Steve interjected. "He's not leading an army from here."

Another spark. _Is he even leading that army?_

"I don't think we should be focusing on Loki," Banner argued. "That guy's brain is a bag full of cats. You could smell crazy on him."

 _Wrong,_ Darcy thought to herself. _The first step to understanding the crime is understanding the motivation._ All of Thor's stories of Loki painted him as sly and mischievous, but never crazy; at least not the level of crazy that seemed to pour out of him now.

"Have care how you speak. Loki is beyond reason, but he is of Asgard, and he is my brother." _No, Thor. You're focusing on the wrong part._

"He killed eighty people in two days," Natasha argued.

Tony glanced over and caught the look on Darcy's face, one so familiar to him that he could feel the thoughts racing through her head like they did his when he was on a Science! bender. "What are you thinking, short stack?" He didn't get a response, but he didn't really expect on either.

"He's adopted." Thor's reply to Natasha hung in the background, ringing in the young intern's ears.

"You guys aren't asking the obvious question," Darcy suddenly cut in, startling those who had been lost in conversation. "What do these Chitauri guys want with the Tesseract?"

"Does it matter?" Tony asked, the arm around her shoulder somehow seeming patronizing as he squeezed it. She brushed him off taking a step forward and pacing across the room.

"It does," she asserted despite the looks of disbelief. "I mean think about it. What Loki wants is power. The Tesseract is hypothetically the most powerful object on earth right now, so why would he give that up to rule over a race that he views as inferior?"

"He wishes to hurt me by overthrowing the realm I have vowed to protect," Thor argued.

"No, that's not good enough," she brushed him off as well, her thumbs coming up to rub her temples. "I mean think about it. Why would Loki just give his only chance at keeping power over to a different group unless he had no choice? Otherwise why recruit them at all? He's just a figurehead, a public image to hide a bigger power at play." A spark twinkled in Thor's blue eyes and suddenly the last piece clicked into place. "Thor, what color are Loki's eyes?"

"They are the same color as your precious emerald earth gems."

"No they're not," she let out a deep breath. "At least not right now, they're not." Everyone looked confused, but seemed to be following. "In Germany… I remember his eyes were blue, like really vivid blue. It was the same with hot-arms-guy."

"Hot-arms-guy?" Tony asked at the same time that Natasha said, "Clint?"

"I don't know who he was or what he was doing there. I saw him before the Gala though, and at the time I thought he was wearing some crazy intense contact lenses or something, but that can't be a coincidence."

"He was there to help steal the Iridium," There was no doubt in Natasha's tone. "That man whose eye Loki gouged out? That was for a retinal scanner."

Darcy made a face of disgust, her stomach turning as she recalled the image of that exact instance. Tony, who hadn't moved very far away despite being brushed off, leaned over and asked quietly, "How did you figure all of that out?"

She just shrugged. "I'm a political science major. It's kind of what I do."

"Iridium," Doctor Banner tapped a pen along the side of his index finger in thought. "What did they need the Iridium for?"

"It's a stabilizing agent." Tony glanced around like everyone around him was an idiot, a look Darcy was familiar with. "It means the portal can open as wide, and stay open as long, as Loki wants."

"That's if it's really Loki who wants it."

He rolled his eyes at her. "It's a good theory, but I'm not 100% on it yet, Lewis. Besides, if he's being controlled similarly to how Barton and Selvig are then it doesn't matter if it's actually him who wants it. He'll do it regardless." She caught him casually placing something down under one of the nearby computers while everyone else had their eyes on her, waiting for a reply. She took a breath then shook her head, making a conscious decision not to comment on either development. Tony send her a wink before continuing on with his rambling and drawing the attention of everyone else in the room back to his theatrics.

"Well, that sounds exhausting. The rest of the raw materials, Agent Barton can get his hands on pretty easily. The only major component he still needs is a power source. A high energy density, something to kick start the cube."

Jane looked at him like he dribbled on himself. "When did you become and expert in thermonuclear astrophysics?" Okay, maybe she was offended that he was talking space knowledge. That was _her_ thing.

"Last night while you two were on your way straight into danger. There was a packet, Selvig's notes, the Extraction Theory papers." He stared at the others in the room. "Am I the only one who did the reading?"

"Does Loki need any particular kind of power source?" Steve pondered.

"Her's got to heat the cube to a hundred and twenty million Kelvin just to break through the Coulomb barrier." _Banner._

"Unless Selvig has figured out how to stabilize the quantum tunneling effect." _Stark._

"If he could manage to do that, and knowing Selvig as well as I do I'm sure he could, he could achieve Heavy Ion Fusion at any reactor on the planet." _Jane?_

"Finally, people who speak English," Tony exclaimed patting both scientist on the back.

"Is that what just happened?" Darcy had to agree with Steve. She could barely keep up with just Jane. She'd learned to just nod when Jane and Tony were in the same room. Now that there was a third Science! enthusiast in the mix there was no hope for her. People she understood, Science! not so much.

"I'm such a huge fan of your work," Jane gushed now that she had an opening to properly fangirl. "You're work in nuclear physics in absolutely unparalleled."

"It's also kind of cool that he loses control and turns into an enormous green rage monster," Tony stage whispered to the woman.

Banner cringed and sent a looked down at the floor, ignoring the various looks from around him. Darcy felt a bit bad for him and so she chimed in, "Don't worry, my dude. As long as it doesn't interfere with Science! then Jane doesn't care." He glanced up and met her eyes with a sheepish and uncomfortably guilty look, and then and there Darcy decided that she would adopt the mild mannered scientist and do whatever she could to never allow that look to appear on his face again.

"Doctor Banner is only here to track the cube," A new voice joined in. Darcy turned to find a tall black man with an eyepatch (Fashion or function?) had entered the lab. If everything Darcy had picked up on since moving to the tower and then getting stuck in this mess was correct, then this man was Nick Fury, SHIELD director "I was hoping you two might join him," he said, indicating to Tony and Jane.

"Let's start with that stick of his," Steve conceded. "It may be magical, but it works and awful lot like a HYDRA weapon."

"I don't know about that, but it is powered by the cube, and I'd like to know how Loki used it to turn two of the sharpest men I know into his personal flying monkeys."

"Monkeys?" Thor turned to Darcy, his gateway to all things pop culture. "I do not understand."

"I do!" Steve let out an astonished chuckled. "I understood that reference."

"I'll let you in on it later, big guy." She patted Thor's arm (he may be Jane's, but no woman could resist touching those muscles).

Tony ignored them all, turning to Jane and Bruce. "Shall we play, doctors?"

Jane gave an exuberant nod, and Bruce responded with, "let's play some."


	5. Scientists are Scary

The secret to taking care of scientists is to realize that they're essentially just a group of kindergarteners. If they're fighting then you sit them on opposite sides of the room facing away from each other. If they're getting too rambunctious then you put them in time out. If they're not listening to you ("just sit down and eat the goddamn muffin, Tony!") then they don't get a treat ("No, Jane. You haven't slept in three days. You only get decaf."). In every group of kindergarteners, however, there's the one kid who's maturity and ability to sit still is light years beyond that of the others'. Bruce Banner was that kid. After the Scientists Three began tracking and analyzing and whatever it is that they actually do, chaos reigned for the first couple hours as Jane argued with Tony and Tony egged on Bruce and Bruce just wanted to be left alone. The other hero-types had slowly dispersed from the lab in the wake of this (they were encouraged to do so by Darcy's assurances that this was relatively normal and as less and less English was spoken in favor of the language of Science!) and went off to regroup somewhere else to discuss the proposed plan of attack ("I have a plan," Tony mocked the Captain, "attack"). At least that's what Darcy assumed was going on. So, while She had to wrangle Tony and Jane as per usual, Bruce took instructions really well and only required a regular dose of tea. The hall guards grumbled every time they had to escort her to the dining area to get some but a good threat of "don't make me sic my scientists on you" did the job of deterring that.

On the bright side, Darcy had finally been able to change out of the God Damned Cocktail Dress, even if the work-out sweats and t-shirt that Natasha "call me Nat" Romanov had acquired for her were still just a bit small and stretched uncomfortably across her chest and hips.

Darcy was pretty sure she did that on purpose to make Steve blush.

After the initial adrenaline of Science! Wore off, things had calmed considerably in the lab over the past couple hours. Doctor Banner had settled into doing continuous scans for radiation by hooking up a gamma ray detection scanner to Loki's scepter. Jane was doing… something that involved a lot of numbers and equations. Tony was just sort of hanging around by where Darcy was stationed fiddling with his holo-tablet-thingymabob, swiping left and right at a speed to rival that of a Tinder addict.

Surprisingly, despite Tony's slowly increasing fidgeting, it was Bruce who broke the quiet that had settled over the group

"The gamma readings are definitely consistent with Selvig's reports on the Tesseract." He sighed, running a hand through his rumpled salt-and-pepper hair. "But it's gonna take weeks to process."

Tony didn't even look up as he responded. "If we bypass their mainframe and direct a reroute to the Homer cluster we can clock this around six hundred teraflops." She'd bet her taser that that's what he was already doing on his tablet.

"All I packed was a tooth brush," Banner joked.

"You know, you should come by Stark Towers sometime." Tony hopped off his perch, wandering over to the quiet doctor. "Top ten floors, all R&D. Jane loves it." Said scientist was so sucked into her work that she didn't even noticed she'd been brought up in conversation. "It's candy land."

"Thanks," Banner shrugged. "But the last time I was in New York I kind of broke" he glanced around at the two women, that sheepish look with the underlying guilt that Darcy hated so much showing up on his face again. "Harlem."

"Well, I promise a stress free environment," Tony continued, ignoring his protests. "No tension. So surprises." Suddenly, he had what looked like a souped-up fork ( _haha, "souped-up fork")_ that crackled, and she watched in interested as he quickly jabbed it in Bruce's ribs.

The doctor flinched and drew away but otherwise seemed fine, if not a little confused at the other man's method of bonding. Tony leaned in, narrowing his eyes and studying him closely. "Nothing?"

"Hey!" Darcy jumped, noting Jane do the same, and nearly fell out of her stool as Steve's voice boomed from close behind her where the entrance of the lab was. She hadn't even realized he came in, but he had and apparently in time to see Tony's (relatively harmless, in Darcy's opinion) stunt. "Are you nuts?"

Tony ignored the question, continuing his faux interrogation of Doctor Banner. "You really have got a lid on it, haven't you? What's your secret? Mellow jazz? Bongo drums? Huge bag of weed?" To any other person, he might have come across as just being a sarcastic dick, but Darcy could see the glint in his eyes; He was genuinely curious. Now, whether that curiosity was for strictly scientific purposes or because he had a shiny new toy/friend to play with was still up for debate, but if Darcy's instinct was right then Tony was already plotting up ideas and experiments in his head to help out the quiet doctor. He really was a bleeding heart, even if he covered it with cynicism and wit.

"Is everything a joke to you?" Steve scoffed.

"Funny things are," Tony shrugged in reply, stepping around a desk to place himself between Steve and the others in the room. Clearly they was gearing up for some kind of argument, and while Darcy had yet to witness a full on blow up between the two, she was certain than one wasn't far off and make sure to be off to the side so as to avoid any accidental explosions (Tony had a tendency to swinging his arms around when he got riled up and it's resulted in one or two mysterious chemicals spilling onto things that they shouldn't).

"Threatening the safety of everyone on this ship isn't funny," The Good Captain argued, but then looked slightly guilty. "No offense, doctor."

"No, it's alright," Bruce assured him, even if he seemed a little put-off. "I wouldn't have come aboard if I couldn't handle pointy things."

"You're tiptoeing, big man." Tony shot back at him. "You need to strut."

"And you need to focus on the problem," Steve growled, tacking on a "Mr. Stark" to the end of the sentence as if mocking the man in front of him.

"You think I'm not," he asked incredulously, hands swinging just as Darcy predicted. "Why did Fury call us, and why only now? Why not before? What isn't he telling us? I can't do the equation unless I have all of the variables."

"You think Fury's hiding something?" Steve intoned.

"He's a spy, Captain. His secrets have secrets," Tony scoffed, like it was the most obvious thing in the world, and Darcy internally snickered at the image of Director fury dressed up in The Black Widow's cat suit and slinking down darkened hallways. He pointed to Banner. "It's bugging him too, isn't it."

Bruce sputtered, not quite expecting the question directed at him. "Uh… I I just wanna finished my work here and…" He trailed off, but it was easy to tell he had more on his mind.

"Doctor?" Steve's voice was harsh against the silence following the doctor's fumbling answer. There was another beat of silence before Bruce finally responded with what he was really thinking.

"'A warm light for all mankind.'" he muttered, referring to the interrogation they'd all watched on the monitor between who Darcy had been informed were Fury and Loki.

"I heard it," Steven acknowledged.

Bruce pointed a thumb to Tony, who'd settled back down at Darcy's side. "I think that was meant for you."

"That would make sense," Darcy chimed in, seeing where he was coming from almost immediately. "What with the finished construction of Stark Tower and everything."

"The Stark Tower? That big, ugly-" Steve cut himself off with a look from the man whose name was plastered across said tower. "...building in New York?"

"It's powered by Stark Reactors," Doctor Banner explained. "A self-sustaining energy source. That building will run itself for what, a year?"

"That's just the prototype." The amount of ego in that one statement was enough to bolster the self confidence of a generation of middle school girls. _He kind of deserves it though_ , Darcy thought, recalling Jane explaining it to her in a way she could understand and how amazed she'd been. "I'm kind of the only name in clean energy right now," Tony finished.

Bruce followed up with his suspicions, referring to Tony's statement. "So, why didn't SHIELD bring him in on the Tesseract project? I mean, what are they doing in the energy business in the first place."

"I should probably look into that once my decryption programmer finished breaking into all of the SHIELD's secure files." _Ah, so that's what he dropped on the computer earlier._

Steve looked taken aback at Tony's announcement. "I'm sorry, did you just say-"

"Jarvis has been running it since I hit the bridge. In a few hour's we'll know every dirty secret SHIELD has ever tried to hide." Darcy nearly choked when he pulled out a bag of blueberries, first offering some to her then turning and holding the bag out to Doctor Banner. "Blueberry?"

Bruce hesitated before reaching out and grabbing a few. Oh, now she really know Tony was trying to make a new friend.

"Yet, you're confused about why they didn't want you around?" Steve accused.

"Whoa, Sassmaster Steven needs to back off," Darcy cut in, feeling more than done with his denial of the likelihood of the situation and retaliatory attack of Tony's character (You have to reach a certain level of friendship before that's acceptable and he was certainly not at that level yet). "You've been in this Century for what, a couple weeks? A couple months at most? How much do you actually know about SHIELD aside from what they've told you?"

He ignored her, making her annoyance burn a little brighter and border on anger. It didn't matter how big a delicious-looking his muscles were. She was a 21st Century woman, not some demure 40s dame, and she would not be disregarded like she had nothing to contribute. "I think Loki's trying to wind us up. This is a man who means to start a war, and if we don't stay focused, he'll succeed. We have orders, we should follow them."

"Following is not really my style," Tony shot back, his attention half on Darcy's growing ire.

Steve noticed this and suddenly a smug smile shifted over his lips and she just knew that he was going to say something that would piss her off. "You won't follow, but you'll happily lead a dame into battle because you need someone to agree with whatever you say? Or is she here for something _more_?"

No one was surprised to hear the slap of Darcy's palm against Steve's cheek, except perhaps Steve himself. _No_ , Darcy corrected in her head. _He doesn't get to be on a first-name-basis after pulling a stunt like that._

It rang for several seconds in the tense silence that followed his remark.

"You're ass is lucky I don't have my taser on me," she hissed "If you ever say anything like that again, about me or anyone else, I'll skip the taser and head straight to Thor, or better yet we can go track down Peggy Carter and ask her opinion on the matter."

He stumbled back, his skin paling several shades as he realized what just happened. She saw the regret instantly, but made no indication of it while his gaze whipped around the room. "Just- Just find the cube," he stammered, and - in an image that Darcy would have laughed at if her weren't so pissed off - tripped over himself in an effort to escape the suddenly hostile lab.

(A/N for those of you would couldn't tell, Steve just accused Tony of sleeping with Darcy. No, I don't hate Steve, but everybody on that helicarrier is a big ball of stress and he's got that on top of acclimating to a new century and essentially dealing with everything he knew being ripped away. ALSO, I was originally going to give the honor of that comment to Nick Fury, but then I realized that continuity means that because SHIELD was the one who ran the original paternity test that dickhead already knew about the biological connection between Tony and Darcy.)


	6. When Things Go Boom

It took several moments for Darcy's breathing to even out, and it was only then that with closed eyes she turned back to the others, her hands rubbing down her face.

"I'm going to throw him through the bifrost and hope he ends up in a bilgsnipe's den." She peeked through her fingers at Jane's statement to find that her favorite lady-scientist had stood up sometime during the altercation and was leaning over her desk, fuming. With a glance around, Jane didn't appear to be the only other person one edge from what had just occurred either. Bruce had an expression of shocked outrage, and Darcy was worried that his skin might have been a shade closer to green that it was before. Tony stood stock still. His eyes were out of focus, and he wasn't saying anything, but she could practically feel the vibrations of anger and disgust running under his tense muscles.

"What?" Darcy asked, catching his attention and drawing his mind back from whatever dark place it had been wandering to. "Am I not hot enough to be secretly banging?" She meant to try to lighten the mood, goodness knows this amount of tension was bad for a group of mad scientists, but if anything Tony's face became even more grim.

"Don't even joke about that, Darcy."

Okay, he pulled out her legal name instead of some variation or nickname. Now was not the time to joke with Stark.

If Darcy were a weaker woman, she might have started tearing up, both from Steve's thoughtless accusations, as well as her gratitude over the anger on her behalf from the Scientists Three. She knew in her head that everyone was overly stressed due to the situation (Odin knows what kind of affect Loki's creepy alien scepter was having), and that Steve - normal, blushing 40s etiquette Steve - would never make such a blatant accusation of impropriety, even to someone like Tony Stark whose history didn't make said accusations any _less_ credible. That, however, did not change the fact that it he _did_ make that accusation, and she was gonna stay angry about it until he apologized to not only her but Tony as well - At least a hundred times each.

"That's the guy my dad never shut up about?" Tony spit out from between his clenched teeth. If possibly, he seemed more offended by the remark than Darcy had been, though she couldn't for the life of her guess why ('see Tony-used-to-be-a-playboy reasoning listed above'). They were close, but not _that_ close. "I'm wondering if they shouldn't have kept him on ice."

Bruce hesitated before responding. "His comments were no doubt unnecessary," he muttered. "But we have to admit that the guy's not wrong about Loki. He does have the jump on us."

"What Loki has is an ACME dynamite kit," Tony huffed, not conceding his point. Whether that was from sheer stubbornness due to the whole it's- _Steve_ -that-has-a-point thing or not was to be debated at a further time. "It's going to blow up in his face, and I'm going to be there when it does."

"And I'll read all about it," Banner responded, fiddling with a pen.

"Yeah, right." Darcy rolled her eyes, hopping up onto Jane's desk and marveling at how different the room looked from that new angle. "You'll probably be out playing sandbox with the spandex crowd as well. That whole 'Hulk smash' thing could be pretty useful in a sticky situation. I studied at Culver. I know the power that Jolly Green packs behind his punch" Bruce blanched at her frankness.

"She's right, you might be suiting up with the rest of us," Tony tilted his head back and to the side, eyeing Jane. "Though, probably not you Galileo. No offence."

The woman smirked, an expression on her face that seemed strange and alien to her assistant. "None taken, even if you're wrong."

"Ah, see," Bruce continued fidgeting, tapping the pen on his index finger while staring into space. "I don't get a suit of armor. I'm exposed, like a nerve. It's a nightmare."

"That's what the spandex is for; to keep you from exposing yourself to people. It's nice and stretchy" Darcy winked at the scientist's adorable blush.

"You know," Tony coughed, clearly attempting to go in at it from a different angle in an effort to convince the quiet scientist. "I've got a cluster of shrapnel trying every second to crawl its way into my heart." He said it bluntly, pointing to the glowing mini-arc reactor in his chest, and Darcy had to swallow the sudden lump in her throat at the implication behind his words. "This stops it. This little circle of light. It's part of me now, not just armor. It's a… terrible privilege." She had the urge to put a comforting hand on his shoulder, maybe even lean in for a hug, but resisted, instead quietly keeping tabs on the conversation.

"But you can control it," Doctor Banner argued.

"Because I learned how," Tony countered.

"It's different," he sighed, his shoulders slumping in pre-emptive defeat. She had to wonder just how many ways he's actually tried and just how many people had actually been willing to help him. He reminded her a lot of what she'd read about pre-Pepper Tony, a man with so much talent but no control, whose abilities were beyond amazing but whose downward spiral seemed to be a self-fulfilling prophesy. Bruce turned to read the computer screen in an attempt to end the conversation, but Tony was having none of it and marched over. He slid the data aside with his finger to that the two of them could see each other face to face.

"Hey, I've read all about your accident," he stated bluntly. "That much gamma exposure should have killed you."

"So what you're saying is that the Hulk… the other guy… saved my life?" Dr. Banner scoffed lightly at the idea, clearly not viewing it the same way as Tony did ("He's not wrong", Darcy muttered). "That's nice. It's a nice sentiment. Saved it for what?"

Tony shrugged. "I guess we'll find out." He wandered back over to his computer, flipping through files that popped up on the holographic screen too fast for Darcy to keep track of without her glasses on.

"You might not like that."

"You just might."

* * *

 ****

 **"** **Do you think I can convince the pilot to stop by McDonald's real quick? I'd kill for some fries right about now." Darcy was sprawled across Jane's desk. She'd made a game of it at first, slowly inching her body across more and more of her boss' work space and waiting to see how long until she noticed. When she finally did take notice it was too late. Darcy had her head propped up on one end and her feet propped up on another. "** ** _It's not like you're using anything besides the computer_** **," she'd argued when Jane had tried to shoo her away, and it was with a sigh of resignation that she began working around her quirky ex-intern. Really, Darcy was there simply due to the lack of comfortable chairs in the high tech lab (clearly, SHIELD only had the pacing kind of scientists who didn't need to sit for more than five minutes at as time). Darcy was** ** _tired,_** **having stayed up for way too long through way too many exciting things. The adrenaline had run dry, and the excitement of being on a cool sci-fi airship had worn off. All Darcy wanted was some food and a nap.**

Tony procured another bag of blueberries from his pocket and threw them when she voiced these thoughts, hitting Darcy on the cheek and causing her to flinch back and nearly roll off the table.

"There's only so much healthy food I can take before it kills me!" she snarked but kept the snack for later, shoving it up her sleeve with the intention of pulling it out of the blue at the most opportune moment (ie. when mocking Tony would have the most comedic effect).

"You're welcome," Tony shot back.

She stuck her tongue out, rolling off the desk and landing on her feet with only the slightest bit of vertigo. "You're super spy thing catch anything good yet? Discovered any naughty Captain America fanart that agent Ipod thief might have hid on the work server to drool over later?"

One of his eyebrows shot up. "Super spy thing?"

"Yeah, the thing you ninja-stuck to the computer over there while you thought no one was paying attention." She nodded her head to the computer in question. "I saw you put it there. You know I saw you put it there. You admitted as such to Good ol' Spangles, so don't play dumb with me, Tony. It's not a good look on you."

"Everything is a good look on me," he argued. "I'm a Stark. It's our defining trait." He sighed when she didn't look impressed at his obvious deflection, waving her over to an area of the room out of earshot from the others. "You're not gonna let this go, are you?" he asked as she joined him, the playfully sarcastic mood sombering to one of a more serious nature.

"You tell me." She crossed her arms and leaned against the glass wall, ignoring the irrational fear that she was just going to fall through the transparent material. "Everyone seems to think that I'm still just the random intern, but I'm stuck in this situation just as much as the rest of you. Need I remind you that I not only work for _the_ Tony Stark, but I'm Shield Sister to the god of thunder. My boss is the interspecies lover to said god, and whatever is going in will directly affect her and thus me. Like you said, they're hiding secrets, and whatever you dig up I wanna know about."

"The difference is that you don't have the clearance level for this," he argued petulantly.

She scoffed. "Yeah, and you totally have the clearance level to hack their network against their knowledge."

She had him there but before she could bask in her victory and get him to fess up, the man of the hour strutted into the room, all black leather and a if-you-sass-me-no-one-will-find-your-body aura.

"What are you doing, Mr. Stark," Nick Fury growled angrily.

Tony turned away from Darcy and toward the angry pirate, making sure to take a step between them so as to block her from his view. "Uh… actually, been wondering the same thing about you."

"You're supposed to be locating the Tesseract." Fury stalked over threateningly.

"We are," Bruce piped up, having been watching the interaction. "The model's locked and we're sweeping for the signature now. When we get a hit, we'll have the location within half a mile."

"And you'll get your cube back, no muss, no fuss." Suddenly, Tony's holo-monitor-thingy let out a _bing_ and he sauntered over to the desk that it was housed in, already having an idea as to the what the notification was about. "By the way, what is Phase 2?"

Darcy jumped at the loud crash caused by Steve having appeared in the lab while no one was paying attention and dropping a _Giant Ass Gun_ on the table near her.

"Phase 2 is SHIELD uses the cube to make weapons." If steam could actually come out of someone's ears, and not just metaphorically, it would've been screaming like a hot tea kettle out of Steve's. The man looked absolutely livid over his apparent discovery. He glanced at Tony and a moment of understanding passed between the two them. They were allied in this for now. "Sorry, the computer was moving a little slow," he acknowledged Stark.

Fury himself looked like he was stuck somewhere between a rock and a hard place and Darcy took a sadistic pleasure in watching him try to crawl his way out of the borderline animosity seeping into the room that was directed toward him.

"Rogers," he scrambled. "We gathered everything related to the Tesseract. This does not mean that we're-"

"I'm sorry, Nick," Tony cut him off, swiping across the computer screen to reveal plans for various weapons. "What were you lying?"

"I was wrong, director." Steve glowered at the man. "The world hasn't changed a bit."

At that moment, Thor and Natasha stepped into the lab, and Darcy found herself slightly scared to be around Doctor Banner for the first time as he caught sight of them.

"Did you know about this?" He asked agent Romanov.

"You wanna think about removing yourself from this environment, doctor?" Darcy caught how she casually put her hand over the gun on her hip, the threat of action if he refused evident.

"I was in Calcutta," he said, as close to a sneer as the good doctor could get. "I was pretty well removed."

"Loki's manipulating you," the redhead tried to reason.

"And you've been doing what exactly." Darcy almost laughed at that, but the room was so tense that it felt like one wrong move would shatter it into chaos.

"You didn't come here because I bat my eyelashes at you."

"Yes, and I'm not leaving because suddenly you get twitchy. I'd like to know why SHIELD is using the Tesseract to build weapons of mass destruction."

"Because of him," Fury cut in, pointing to Thor.

"Me?" The man in question looked stunned, like a puppy who'd gotten booped a little to roughly on the nose. His shock quickly turned to offence as the director continued.

"Last year earth has a visitor from another planet who had a grudge match that leveled a small town. We learned that not only are we not alone, but we are hopelessly, hilariously, outgunned." Darcy disagreed. She'd been there. Yeah, some shit blew up but the town was hardly 'leveled', as the director put it.

"My people want nothing but peace with your planet," Thor huffed, crossing his arms and causing the muscles to bulge in a contradictorily threatening way.

"But you're not the only people out there, are you? And, you're not the only threat. The world's filling up with people who can't be matched. They can't be controlled."

"Like you controlled the cube?" Steve piped in.

"Your work with the Tesseract is what drew Loki it, and his allies," Thor huffed, standing at his full height but not moving otherwise. " It is the signal to all the realms that the earth is ready for a higher form of war."

"A higher form?" Jane's widened eyes were reflective of but a fraction of the amount of panic that shocked it's way through Darcy. She stared at the others, her gaze flitting back and forth through every tension filled face in the room. The earth was potentially threatened by a _higher form_ of war, only Darcy suddenly felt the dread settle into the pit of her stomach at the thought that it was the infighting that was going to get to it first.

"You forced our hand." Fury ignored the side question from Jane and instead focusing on shoving the blame onto the Asgardian prince. "We had to come up with something."

"Nuclear deterrent," Tony sassed, losing his cool and stepping toward the man threateningly. "Because that always calms everything right down."

Fury glared at him but didn't back down. "Remind me again how you made your fortune, Stark?"

"Hey," Darcy interrupted, and suddenly all eyes were on her. "Tony fucking up until 4 years ago does not excuse you fucking up now. That's like saying someone robbing a bank excuses someone else's murder, and that shit doesn't hold up in court."

"What the hell is she doing in here?" Fury asked, and Darcy refused to believe he wasn't actually aware of her presence. He just didn't care until she called him out on his shit.

"I'm an assistant. I'm assisting."

"Well, someone assist her out of here," he called to the guards stationed in the hall.

Three voices rose up in protest: Jane, Thor, and Tony. Fury ignored all of them and Darcy once again found herself wishing she had her taser when one of said guards grabbed her roughly by the elbow and dragged her out of the lab and down the hall.

"Where are you taking me?" She hissed after a moment, stumbling to keep up with the no-named-thug's fast pace. She could still hear the fading sounds of arguing voices bouncing off the metal walls, though they were quickly fading. She might have imagined a _Stand down, Stark_ before they muffled then disappeared completely.

"I am escorting you to a secure area where you will be allowed to wait until further notice."

"A cell," Darcy growled. She wasn't stupid, and what he just said was a whole lot of fancy words for bull shit. "You're taking me to a cell, aren't you?"

She didn't get her answer, however, because even before the guard could open his mouth to sent out a scathing reply, the whole Helicarrier shook and blast shockwaves sent the two flying into the nearby wall. Darcy was unconscious before she'd even hit the floor.

* * *

Despite the ensuing pandemonium across the helicarrier, that hall remained empty of any foot traffic for the duration of its siege. It wasn't until the Captain and Iron Man restarted the turbine, Natasha knocked some sense into Barton, and the Hulk wasn't green anymore that any footsteps echoed down the metal corridor. Vibrant blue eyes stared dispassionately at the impaled guard but caught on the limp frame of dark haired woman who, while bleeding from a couple purpling areas on her person, was still managing some shallow, rasping breath. Loki recognized the woman from the Gala, but more importantly he recognized the protective nature several of his adversaries appeared to adopt in her presence. A slightly unhinged smirk painted his face as a slight change wove its way into his plan, and with a surprisingly delicate touch he lifted the injured body from the floor and disappeared in a haze of smoke and magic.


	7. Some People Find Out Some Stuff

Mind control is a tricky thing. Not that Clint had _a lot_ of experience with actual swear-to-Thor mind control, but he'd seen his fair share of manipulation and conditioning in action to know that it's not as simple to overthrow as comic books and action movies make it seem. Battling mind control, he's found, was a lot like battling a bad panic attack.

When one is trapped in their mind the best thing to guide themselves out of it logically. So, Clint did just that, battling Loki's hold on him by grasping anything his senses could pick up and grounding himself into the physical space rather than the mental. He focused on the biting chill of the metal chair where his shirt had ridden up just enough for it to make contact with his skin; the texture of the constraints around his wrists that tightened along with his clenching fists; the slight breeze the brushed an out of place hair against his temple; even the near silent breathing of his red-headed companion. He tallied in his head each exhale of breath, and mentally went through each part of his body and relaxed the individual muscles there.

It was a long process, one that he was sure felt longer than it actually was, but eventually his body and mind responded and it was like his consciousness finally settled back into his own skin. He could see through the haze of blue that had clouded his vision. He felt safer, well as safe as one could get tied to a chair. His mind, while acutely aware of his surroundings, was less active with energy that had focus rather than no place to go.

Natasha silently watched over her partner as he struggled to shake Loki's mind control. He pulled against the restrained, but his efforts waned along with the the cloudiness of his eyes. It wasn't until she could see _Clint_ again that she chose to speak.

"You're gonna be alright."

He bristled, seeming offended at her assurances. "You know that? Is that what you know?" He grit his teeth in noiseless growl, his breath still heavy despite its evenness. "I've got… I've got to go in though. I've got to flush him out."

"We don't have that long. It's going to take time."

"I don't understand." This time there _was_ an audible growl. "Have you ever had someone take your brain and play? Pull you out and send someone else in? Do you know what it's like to be unmade?"

Her eyes tightened. "You know that I do."

He shook his head, mentally dusting the cobwebs even farther. "Why am I back? How did you get him out?"

"Cognitive recalibration." A pause. "I hit you really hard in the head."

"Thanks." He let out a huff that might have been a laugh, and she stood to unfasten his wrists now that he appeared to be more himself. "Tasha…" He trailed off before continuing. "How many agents?"

She stopped mid buckle. "Don't." She stared him head in the eye. "Don't do that to yourself, Clint. This is Loki. This is monsters and magic and _nothing_ we were ever trained for."

She could tell he wasn't about to let himself off the hook but he dropped it for now. "Loki, he got away?"

She nodded. "Yeah, I don't suppose that you know where?"

"I didn't need to know," he bit out, frustrated at himself once again. "I didn't ask. He's gonna make his play soon though. Today."

"We have to stop him."

"Yeah?" Clint raised an eyebrow at her as she finished with the last of the restraints, rubbing his wrists. "Who's we?"

"I don't know," she shrugged. "Whoever's left."

"Well, if I put an arrow in Loki's eye socket, I'd sleep better I suppose."

Natasha smirked. "Now you sound like you." She sat down next to him as he pulled his legs over the side of the chair.

"But you don't," he argued lightly. "You're a spy, not a soldier. Now you want to wade into a war. Why? What did Loki do to you?"

"He didn't, I just…"

"Natasha." He was prodding. He knew it, and she knew it, but she decided to give him a little bit anyway as a sign of trust between the two - something that was desperately needed to let him know that she was still on his side in all of this.

"I've been compromised," she admitted. "I've got red in my ledger, and I'd like to wipe it out." She let out her version of a sigh and stood, offering her partner a hand and cutting off that line of thought before he could ask further. "Come on. Let's go see who's all left."

* * *

 **A set of blood-stained Captain America trading cards hit the table with a small but resounding** ** _slap_** **. Every person seated around the room flinched, even if not all of them did so externally.**

"These were in Phil Coulson's jacket," Director Fury said with little emotion. "Guess he never did get you to sign them."

Steve was the first to move, reaching forward to pick them up with a look of numb shock. The devastation was evident in his eyes, and it matched that of his companions.

Natasha, having just sat down with Clint, put a hand on her partners knee in support. She knew that he had a deep history with the man and could feel his tension over the sudden knowledge of his death so soon after coming out of Loki's control.

Thor, who'd fought to calm the Hulk before returning to Jane, offered his female companion a body to lean on. She'd never been a fan of the agent, but had never wished death upon him. His demise made the situation that much more real for her and everyone else seated with them.

"We're dead in the air up here," Fury said, pacing in front of the glass windows looking down upon the main bridge. "Our communications, location of the cube, Banner. I've got nothing for you. Lost my one good eye. Maybe I had that coming." The implication of his words sunk itself deep into everyone's gut. He stared out at the other people scurrying about on the opposite side of the glass and let a contemplative silence surround the group before continuing.

"Yes, we were going to build an arsenal with the Tesseract. I never put all my chips on that number though, because I was playing something even riskier. There was an idea, Stark knows this, called the Avengers Initiative. The idea was to bring together a group of remarkable people, see if they could become something more. See if they could work together when we needed them to, to fight the battles that we never could. Phil Coulson died still believing in that idea, in heroes."

Tony stood suddenly, and everyone thought he was going to leave for a moment before his shoulders sunk in defeat. "What do you need us to do?"

Nick fury simply shrugged. "Whatever it is that you need to do." He exited, leaving the group in silence.

Some stared off into space, some looked around at the others, Tony still stood - his shaking hands clenched on the glass table - but it was Steve who broke the hush of contemplation, his eyes still on the bloody cards in his hands.

"Was he married?"

The spell broke and Tony sat back down, his hands rubbing down his face with a sigh. "No, There was a, uh, cellist I think."

"There was," Clint agreed with a sad smile.

"The Son of Col was a good man and a brave warrior," Thor's normally booming voice was subdued and quiet.

"He was an idiot," Tony grumbled.

Natasha sent him a dower look said nothing.

"Why?" Steve questioned. "For believing?"

"For taking on Loki alone."

"He was doing his job."

"He was out of his league. He should have waited. He should have-" Tony stopped, feeling the emotions well up in his throat. There was no way he was going to cry over this. "Romanov, where'd Fury take Darcy?" he asked, changing the subject.

"He would have had her taken to one of the holding cells to get her out of the way and keep her from getting into something she wasn't supposed to," she responded, though given the spontaneity of her expellment from the room at the time it was really only a best guess based on standard procedures.

"He put her in a cell?!" Jane shrieked, Tony's livid expression reflecting her outrage.

"All things considered, it's the safest place she could have been," Natasha argued, crossing her arms and not giving an inch.

"Wait," Clint's forehead crinkled in confusion. "Who the hell is Darcy?"

"My assistant," Jane supplied.

"My Shield Sister," Thor grinned.

"My-" Tony cut himself off.

"You know, I'm not 100% sure anymore," Steve shrugged.

Natasha glanced at Tony with a suspiciously knowing look before turning to her partner and explaining, "She was at the Stuttengard Gala with Dr. Foster when we picked Loki up, hence their presence on the helicarrier."

"Romanov. Chop chop." The only thing that kept her from ignoring Tony was the slight desperation in his voice and her knowledge of the circumstances surrounding it. She stood and stepped off to the side, pressing the communicator in her ear and requesting contact with whoever was currently stationed to guard to cell blocks to escort Ms. Lewis to her location.

"Wait a minute," Clint's face distorted in deep thought as he dug through his hazy memories. "This Darcy wouldn't happen to have long dark hair and look really great in a little black dress, would she?"

Tony's eyes narrowed while Jane's widened.

"You know her?" Jane asked, shocked.

"I remember running into her," he admitted, his face contorting as he dug around some more. "She tripped on the stairs and I helped her up."

"That certainly sounds like Darcy," Jane laughed, though it was a much more subdued sound than she usually produced.

"Should you really be laughing right now, Galileo?" Tony sneered, catching everyone off guard. "He could have hurt her."

"I wouldn't have," Clint argued, though he looked guiltily down as he did so. "She wasn't a part of the mission."

"And if she got in the way?" Tony prodded then scoffed when the archer remained silent and refused to meet his eyes.

"It would not have been his fault, Man of Iron," Thor held his chin high with the grace of a prince as the glower was turned on him. "He was not of his own mind at the time."

"Be honest, Maybelline. If he had hurt Darcy, whether is was of his own mind or not, would you have been able to forgive him?"

"No," Thor said with no hesitation. "But Lady Darcy would have."

They were at a stalemate, neither backing down until their hard gazes were drawn away by Natasha's return.

Only Clint could detect the nervousness in her stance.

"We don't know where Darcy is," she said simply.

"What?!" Tony, Jane, and Thor all jumped up from the table, leaving Clint and Steve the only ones left sitting, though they were soon to follow as the tension in the room dramatically increased.

"I just spoke with the Agents stationed at the cells. Darcy never arrived. Hill sent someone to check the route from the lab and we found the deceased body of her escort, assumed dead as a result of the blast from the attack, but no Darcy."

Tony was shaking, his vision narrowing as panic made it feel like the shrapnel in his chest had somehow managed to finally pierce his heart. "Find her."

"We're working on it," the redhead assured him. "Hill already has a team reviewing any and all surveillance footage from the moment she left the lab until the moment we discovered the body, But Tony-" She caught his eye, hesitating because she knew it was going to be like the moment Coulson told her the Barton had been compromised. "We don't think she's aboard the helicarrier."

There wasn't a person in the room who didn't see the despair cloud Tony's eyes, a look so unfamiliar that each was taken aback by the intensity of it. There was only one time Tony could recall feeling this way - after the death of his parents. Darcy wasn't dead though. She _couldn't_ be, but it was the fear that she might be that gripped his heart and froze his body.

Steve placed a hand on his shoulder, bringing him back and making him achingly aware of the situation at hand. "Is this the first time you've lost a soldier?"

"SHE WAS NOT A SOLDIER!" He lashed out, pulling away from his well-meaning but out-of-place comrade. "None of us are! I am not a part of Fury's private little avenging army!"

"Neither am I!" Steve argued. "He's got the same blood on his hands as Loki does. Right now we've got to put that aside and get this done. Now, Loki needs a power source, if we can put together a list..."

Tony stared at the cards still in Steve's hand, not hearing anything he was saying, but everyone knew that it wasn't just Coulson he was thinking of. "He made it personal," He cut Steve off from whatever it was he was saying.

"That's not the point."

"That _is_ the point!" Tony growled. He made eye contact with everyone in the room as understanding washed over him. When he met Agent Romanov's - Natasha's - eyes he knew that she knew, and it killed him but he needed to say the words out loud; he needed everyone to understand just what it all meant, what Loki was trying to do. Natasha gave a slight nod, and he took that as he agreement. "She's my daughter. Darcy… Darcy, is my daughter."

No one spoke. Their shock was palpable and Tony took the chance to continue before they could question him, twisting the knife that had already buried itself deep in his gut.

"That's Loki's point. He took her, we all know he did, because he has to hit us all right where it hurts. Why?"

"To tear us apart," Steve mumbled, still processing this new information.

Tony's despair began to morph into determination. "He had to conquer his greed, but he knows he has to take us out to win, right? That's what he wants. He wants to beat us and he wants to be seen doing it. He wants an audience."

"Right," Steve nodded. "I caught his act at Stuttengard.

"Yeah. That's just a preview, this is opening night." Tony started pacing the length of the room. "Loki's a full-tilt diva. He wants flowers, he wants parades, he wants a monument built in the skies with his name plastered-" Tony stopped, his eyes widening. "Sonofabitch! Stark Tower."

Everyone in the room tensed, understanding what he was implying. Loki would attack, and we would do so from the heart of one of the largest cities in the world.

Thor shifted suddenly, pulling to his full height and stepping in front of Jane. "I pledge my allegiance so long as Loki faces Asgardian justice. His crimes span more than just this realm, and he must face judgement for all of them in the hall of the All-Father."

Steve cut in before Tony could argue. "We accept." He looked over the the millionaire and said in explanation. "Whether we like it or not, we need his help, and he has just as much invested in Loki's downfall as any of us."

"I want to help," Jane piped up.

"You're a civilian," Agent Romanov argued.

"I also understand the most about the Tesseract out of anyone in this room, sans Tony and he'll be too busy kicking ass. I can working on shutting down whatever it is Loki has thrown together while the rest of you work on shutting _him_ down." There was a brief quiet as her words sunk in.

"Lady Jane, I must implore you-"

"Thor, you may be over a 1000 years old, but in this realm I am still considered an adult woman and can make my own decisions." She almost missed the spark of pride in his eyes before he solemnly nodded his head and the conversation moved on.

"Agent Romanov," Steve spoke. "Can you fly one of those jets."

"I can," Barton answered for her. Steve looked at her and she nodded her head in confirmation of Barton's ability and allegiance.

"You got a suit?" he asked the archer.

"Yeah."

"Then suit up."

* * *

Darcy's head was killing her. The light was too bright against her closed eyelids, and the distant sound of the city grated her ears. Every inch of her body throbbed like that one time back in middle school when she'd gotten him by a soccer mom's minivan, though this time she woke up cushioned against something much more comfortable than a hospital bed. She let out a groan as she shifted and slowly blinked her eyes open despite the discomfort. There was none of that disorientation she'd read about before. She knew that she remembered the helicarrier and the feeling of forever as something threw her against the wall, and her best guess was that she'd been unconscious. She didn't think that she had a concussion, but couldn't quite explain why she was on a couch instead of a cot.

 _Is this… Tony's penthouse?_

It was, but how she'd gotten there she had no clue. Whelp, _there's_ the disorientation.

Very carefully, she sat up and looked around. She seemed to be alone, but something out the window moved and caught her attention.

 _Selvig?!_

She watched as he moved around on the balcony. He appeared to be working on one of those unfamiliar Science! Machines that she was, in fact, so familiar with, and she began to understand just how precarious the situation she found herself in was. Selvig, the last she knew, was with Loki, and with no other evidence suggesting that he had been rescued in her time down under, that meant that the most logical conclusion was that -

"Ah, You're finally awake."

...she had been captured by Mr. dour, dark, and deranged himself. Loki.


	8. Never Trust A Crazy Space Man

Darcy was no stranger to "oh, fuck" situations. Her best friend was a mad scientist, her boss was a genius billionaire, and she was the lighting sister of a literal god. Granted, that literal god's psycho adopted brother now held her captive in the genius billionaire's phallic tribute to his giant ego and looked about half a step away from skewering her like a tender slice of chicken on a kabob.

"You, uh… you wouldn't happen to have brought be here for a surprise party, would you?" _Oh, great. Your mouth chooses now to start yapping?_ "Because it's not actually my birthday yet, dude."

Surprisingly ignoring her foot-in-mouth remark, Loki strode over to the large bay window and stared out. He was still, but that stillness was wrought with an undercurrent of crackling energy that left Darcy more on edge than when he was going all Mad God at the Stupid Science Gala. She wanted to stand, to hide as far across the room as possible, but she didn't want to draw his attention back toward her. The dude was a psycho space man. Even facing the opposite direction he could probably see still see her because of literal eyes on the back of his head or something.

She fidgeted in her seat, fighting the urge to run hard and run fast, because she might be scared, but not so much that it was enough to override common sense and self preservation instinct. She liked being alive, thank you very much.

"Do you not find yourself angry?"

Darcy nearly jumped out of her skin as Loki's voice broke through the quiet of the penthouse. She chanced a look over to find that while he still faced away from her, his vivid blue eyes were reflected back at her through the glass of the window pane, analyzing her.

"Angry?"

Those blue eyes narrowed, but instead of skewering her he explained, "You were a forced Cuckoo in the nest of another because you were abandoned as a child. Does that not make you angry?"

It took a moment before his exact meaning sunk in, but Darcy had always been good at reading between the lines. "Are you… are you asking if I'm upset about being adopted?" She took his silence as a confirmation. "How the hell do you even know that?"

Suddenly he was looming above her, his face seething as he leaned threateningly into her space. She shrunk back into the plush couch, flinching as he bit out his next words.

"You purposefully evade the question by focusing on the irrelevant details! Are. You. Not. Angry?!"

"No." She stated curtly, forcing herself to meet his eyes. "Why are _you_ so angry?" Internally slapping herself for doing something as stupid as further provoking an angry god, she shut her mouth with a resounding click.. _This is it. This is the moment my lack of filter kills me._

He flinched away, taken aback at her subtle accusation. The audacity of a human girl to speak back to him must have caught him off guard and Darcy had to hope that wasn't reason enough to him to consider snapping her neck.

His eyes narrowed a fraction more. "Do you truly not resent your false guardians?"

She huffed out a sardonic laugh. "Sure I do, but my adoptive parents aren't the false guardians. My biological mother was an irresponsible, constantly partying, drug addict. I left for school one day with her nursing a hangover at the kitchen table and came back to her dead from an overdose on the living room floor. I got bounced around in the system for years before these kind, amazing people took me in and raised me - and _loved_ me - and those are my real parents. My biological mother? My absent father? They were the false guardians."

He seemed to digest what she revealed before asking, "and your absent father? Do you not hate him for abandoning you?"

"You can't be abandoned by someone who doesn't know you exist. Hell, my mother slept with so many people so often even she couldn't tell you who the guy was."

"And if I could?"

"If you could what?"

He scoffed. "You are being purposefully dense again."

"Oh, pardon the tiny human for focusing on not dying rather than the subtext of the conversation."

He laughed, almost like he didn't mean to. It was a harsh sound, but on a level of 1-to-blowing-up-cars-in-Germany it was relatively sane. This Loki seemed much more natural than the one with the creepy, insane blue eyes. Well, his eyes were still creepy and blue-

 _NO! Do not humanize a psycho alien because he has a nice laugh!_

He relaxed, backing off from her space and sauntering around the room. He eyed the many technological knick knacks that Tony'd left strewn about, coming to a stop at the bar counter and fingering a manilla folder that sat on it.

"Are you not at all curious who your father is?"

"I _know_ who my father is," Darcy argued.

"You purposely misinterpret my meaning, child, and I grow weary of it."

She shrugged, responding to his initial question rather than argue. "It doesn't matter to me."

He lifted the folder, turning it in his hand. "Doesn't it?"

In a flash of green, the folder disappeared only to reappear in her lap.

"Something that my brother oft forgets in lieu of his brutish tendencies is that I do so love to read."

The wind continued to rush through Tony Stark's ears as he stepped onto his penthouse landing pad, pieces of his suit retracting into the overarching gauntlets to be repaired with each step. He had eyes for nothing outside of Loki grinning up at him from the lower balcony. He followed as the mad god turned to enter the penthouse.

Tony's stance as he wandered toward the bar was casual, despite feeling anything but. Darcy was nowhere in sight and Loki was prowling around with a spear that was clearly trying to compensate for something.

Loki smirked, clearly aware of where his thoughts were. "Please tell me you're going to appeal to my humanity like that pitiful chit."

His jaw clenched at the obvious barb, but he remained otherwise aloof. "Uh… actually, I'm planning to threaten you."

"You should have left your armor on for that."

"Yeah, it's seen a bit of mileage." He shrugged. "You've got the blue stick of destiny. Would you like a drink?"

"Stalling won't change anything. We're both aware of the leverage I hold."

"So, no drink then? You sure? I'm having one."

Loki scoffed. "The Chitauri are coming, nothing will change that. What have I to fear?"

"The Avengers." There was a blank look of disinterest in Loki's eyes at Tony's bold statement, though he ignored it. "It's what we call ourselves, sort of like a team. 'Earth's Mightiest Heroes' type of thing."

He remained unimpressed. "Yes, I've met them."

"Yeah, takes us a while to get any traction, I'll give you that one." He smiled, taking a long pull from his tumbler of expensive scotch. "But let's do a head count here. Your brother, the demiGod, a super soldier, a living legend who kind of lives up to the legend, a man with breathtaking anger management issues, a couple of master assassins - and you, big fella, you've managed to piss off every single one of them."

"That was the plan"

"Not a great plan," Tony tutted at him, slipping on his suit bracelets behind the bar counter so that he could call Mark VII to him when it finished prepping. "When they come, and they will, they'll come for you."

"I have an army," Loki laughed, lounging by the wall of windows overlooking the city.

"We have a Hulk," Tony countered. He caught the glint in good ol' Green Goblin's eye before the next words slipped past his silver tongue.

"I have your daughter." A flash of emerald and there she was, standing next to the man Tony hated most in the entirety of Yssgadril and looking dazed in his grip. She blinked, processing her surroundings and staring at Tony wide-eyes once she realized he stood no less than twenty feet from her.

"You see, that's where you messed up," Tony growled. "There's no throne. There is no version of this where you come out on top. Maybe your army comes, and maybe it's too much for us in the end, but I guarantee you that you won't be the one to make it to the end, because you were fucked the moment you touched her, and because if we can't protect the Earth, you can be damn sure that we'll avenge it."

Loki laughed, the sound cruel and harsh. "You seem to think that I'll play fair in this scenario, just like Darcy here seems to think that my motives are at all less than my own. In the end, though, how can you hope to save the earth when you can't even save one girl?"

It happened in slow motion. Loki shifted, using the hand he held Darcy's arm to fling her backwards from where they stood and into the view of the cityscape below. The last thing Tony heard before he jolted forward was his name ripping like wind past his ears through Darcy's throat as the glass window shatter around her and she plummeted down the side of the tower. 


End file.
